A  THEOLOGY 
FOR  THE  SOCIAL  GOSPEL 


BY 

WALTER  RAUSCHENBUSCH 

Author  of  "Christianity  and  the  Social  Crisis,"  "Christianizing 

the  Social  Order,"  "Prayers  of  the  Social  Awakening," 

"The  Social  Principles  of  Jesus,"  etc. 


SEP   K»2006 

^OtCG  CAL  SE1^\^ 


N«n  fork 
THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1917 

All  rights  reatrved 


;-o 


OOPTEIGHT,    1917 

By  the  MAOMILLAN  COMPi-NT 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published,  Noyember,  1917. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  INSCRIBED 

WITH  REVERENCE  AND  GRATITUDE 

TO 

AUGUSTUS  HOPKINS  STRONG 

FOR  FORTY  YEARS 

PRESIDENT  OF  ROCHESTER  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY, 

MY  TEACHER,  COLLEAGUE,  FRIEND, 

HUMANIST  AND  LOVER  OF  POETRY, 

A  THEOLOGIAN  WHOSE  BEST  BELOVED  DOCTRINK 

HAS  BEEN 

THE  MYSTIC  UNION  WITH  CHRIST 


FOREWORD 

In  April,  1917,  I  had  the  honour  of  deHvering  four 
lectures  on  the  Nathaniel  W.  Taylor  Foundation  before 
the  Annual  Convocation  of  the  Yale  School  of  Religion. 
These  lectures  are  herewith  presented  in  elaborated  form. 

The  Taylor  Lectures  are  expected  to  deal  with  some 
theme  in  Doctrinal  Theology,  but  the  Faculty  in  their  in- 
vitation indicated  that  a  discussion  of  some  phase  of  the 
social  problem  would  be  welcome.  I  have  tried  to  obey 
this  suggestion  and  still  to  remain  well  within  the  original 
purpose  of  the  Foundation  by  taking  as  my  subject,  "  A 
Theology  for  the  Social  Gospel." 

Of  my  qualifications  for  this  subject  I  have  reason  to 
think  modestly,  for  I  am  not  a  doctrinal  theologian  either 
by  professional  training  or  by  personal  habits  of  mind. 
Professional  duty  and  intellectual  liking  have  made  me 
a  teacher  of  Church  History,  and  the  events  of  my  life, 
interpreted  by  my  religious  experiences,  have  laid  the 
social  problems  on  my  mind.  On  the  other  hand,  it  may 
be  tl'.at  the  necessity  of  approaching  systematic  theology 
from  the  outside  may  be  of  real  advantage.  Theology 
has  often  received  its  most  fruitful  impulses  when  secu- 
lar life  and  movements  have  set  it  new  problems. 

Or"  the  subject  itself  I  have  no  cause  to  speak  modestly. 
Its  consideration  is  of  the  highest  importance  for  the 
future  of  theology  and  religion.     It  bristles  with  intel- 


FOREWORD 

lectual  problems.  This  book  had  to  be  written  some 
time,  and  as  far  as  I  know,  nobody  has  yet  written  it.  I 
offer  my  attempt  until  some  other  man  comes  along  who 
can  plough  deeper  and  straighten 

I  wish  to  assure  the  reader  who  hesitates  in  the  vesti- 
bule, that  the  purpose  of  this  book  is  wholly  positive  and 
constructive.  It  is  just  as  orthodox  as  the  Gospel  would 
allow.  I  have  dedicated  it  to  an  eminent  representative 
of  the  older  theology  in  order  to  express  my  deep  grati- 
tude for  what  I  have  received  from  it,  and  to  clasp  hands 
through  him  with  all  whose  thought  has  been  formed  by 
Jesus  Christ. 

My  fraternal  thanks  are  due  to  my  friends,  Professor 
James  Bishop  Thomas,  Ph.D.,  of  the  University  of  the 
South,  and  Professor  F.  W.  C.  Meyer  of  Rochester  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  who  have  given  a  critical  reading  to  my 
manuscript  and  have  made  valuable  suggestions. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

//  '  I    The  Challenge  of  the  Social  Gospel  to  The- 
ology      I 

II    The    Difficulties    of    Theological    Readjust- 
ment        10 

III  Neither  Alien  nor  Novel    .......     23 

IV  The  Consciousness  of  Sin    ........     31 

V    The  Fall  of  Man 38 

*^    VI     The  Nature  of  Sin 45 

VII    The  Transmission  of  Sin 57 

;,.'VIII  The  Super-Personal  Forces  of  Evil    ....     69 

,-    IX    The  Kingdom  of  Evil yy 

X  The  Social  Gospel  and  Personal  Salvation     .     95 

XI  The  Salvation  of  the  Super-Personal  Forces  iio 

XII    The  Church  as  the  Social  Factor  of  Salva- 
tion   118 

-    Xril    The  Kingdom  of  God .   131 

^  XIV    The  Initiator  of  the  Kingdom  of  God      .     .     .146 

XV    The  Social  Gospel  and  the  Conception  of  God  167 

XVI    The  Holy  Spirit,  Revelation,  Inspiration,  and 

Prophecy 188 

X\ai    Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper 197 

XVIII    Eschatology 208 

XIX    The  Social  Gospel  and  the  Atonement  .     .     .240 


A  THEOLOGY  FOR  THE 
SOCIAL  GOSPEL 

X      CHAPTER  I 

THE  CHALLENGE  OF  THE  SOCIAL  GOSPEL  TO  THEOLOGY     A 

'^    We  have  a  social  gospel.     We  need  a  systematic  theol-lf 
ogy  large  enough  to  match  it  and  vital  enough  to  back  it.  \iy 

This  is  the  main  proposition  of  this  book.  The  first 
three  chapters  are  to  show  that  a  readjustment  and  ex- 
pansion of  theology,  so  that  it  will  furnish  an  adequate 
intellectual  basis  for  the  social  gospel,  is  necessary,  feas- 
ible, desirable,  and  legitimate.  The  remainder  of  the 
book  offers  concrete  suggestions  how  some  of  the  most 
import ;mt  sections  of  doctrinal  theology  may  be  expanded 
and  readjusted  to  make  room  for  the  religious  convic- 
tions summed  up  in  "  the  social  gospel." 

Some  of  my  readers,  who  know  the  age,  the  tenacity, 
and  t]ie  monumental  character  of  theology  well,  will 
smile  at  the  audacity  of  this  proposal.  Others,  who 
know  theology  still  better,  will  treat  this  venture  very 
serioisly.  If  theology  stops  growing  or  is  unable  to  ad- 
just i'self  to  its  modern  environment  and  to  meet  its  pres- 
ent tasks,  it  will  die.  Many  now  regard  it  as  dead.  Thej 
social  gospel  needs  a  theology  to  make  it  effective;  butj 
theology  needs  the  social  gospel  to  vitalize  it.     The  work* 


2  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

attempted  in  this  book  is  doomed  to  futility  if  it  ha?  only 
the  personal  ideas  of  the  author  behind  it.  It  is  worthy 
of  consideration  only  if  the  needs  of  a  ^ew  epoch  are 
seeking  expression  in  it,  and  in  that  case  its  personal  de- 
fects are  of  slight  importance. 

The  argument  of  this  book  is  built  on  the  completion 
that  the  social  gospel  is  a  permanent  addition  to  our  spir- 
itual outlook  and  that  its  arrival  constitutes  a  stage  in  the 
development  of  the  Christian  religion. 

We  need  not  waste  vi^ords  to  prove  that  the  social  gos- 
pel is  being  preached.  It  is  no  longer  a  prophetic  and 
occasional  note.  It  is  a  novelty  only  in  backward  social 
/or  religious  communities.  The  social  gospel  has  become 
orthodox. 

It  is  not  only  preached.  It  has  set  new  problems  for 
local  church  work,  and  has  turned  the  pastoral  and  c  rgan- 
izing  work  of  the  ministry  into  new  and  constructive  di- 
rections, yit  has  imparted  a  wider  vision  and  a  more 
statesmanlike  grasp  to  the  foreign  mission  enterpfi-;e.  In 
home  missions,  its  advent  was  signalized  by  the  publica- 
^tion,  in  1885,  of  "Our  Country"  by  Josiah  .Strong. 
{Venerahile  nomen!)  That  book  lifted  the  entirr  home 
mission  problem  to  a  higher  level.  The  religious  litera- 
ture uttering  the  social  gospel  is  notable  both  for  ii  \  vol- 
ume and  its  vitality  and  conviction.  The  emotions'  fer- 
vour of  the  new  convictions  has  created  prayen  and 
hymns  of  social  aspiration,  for  which  the  newer  nymn 
books  are  making  room.  Conservative  denomii  ations 
have  formally  committed  themselves  to  the  fundanental 
ideas  of  the  social  gospel  and  their  practical  application. 


THE    CHALLENGE    TO    THEOLOGY  3 

The  plans  of  great  interdenominational  organizations  are 
inspired  by  it.  It  has  become  a  constructive  force  in 
American  politics. 

This  new  orientation,  which  is  observable  in  all  parts 
of  our  religious  life,  is  not  simply  a  prudent  adjustment 
of  church  methods  to  changed  conditions.     There  is  re- 
ligious compulsion  behind  it.     Those  who  are  in  touch 
with  the  student  population  know  what  the  impulse  to  I 
social  service  means  to  college  men  and,  women.    Tt  is  r 
the  most  religious  element  in  the  life  of  many  of  them.  V 
Among  ministerial  students  there  is  an  almost  impatient 
demand  for  a  proper  social  outlet.     Some  hesitate  to  en- 
ter   the    regular    ministry    at    all    because    they    doubt 
whether   it  will   offer  them  sufficient   opportunity  and 
freedom  to  utter  and  apply  their  social  convictions.    For 
many  ministers  who  have  come  under  the  influence  of  the 
social  gospel  in  mature  years,  it  has  signified  a  religious 
crisis,  and  where  it  has  been  met  successfully,  it  has 
brought  fresh  joy  and  power,  and  a  distinct  enlargement 
of  mind.     It  has  taken  the  place  of  conventional  religion] 
in  the  lives  of  many  outside  the  Church.     It  constitutes 
the  moral  power  in  the  propaganda  of  Socialism. . 

All  those  social  groups  which  distinctly  face  toward  the 
future  clearly  show  their  need  and  craving  for  a  social 
interpretation  and  application  of  Christianity.  Whoever 
wants  to  hold  audiences  of  working  people  must  es-. 
tablisli  some  connection  between  religion  and  their  social 
feelings  and  experiences.  The  religious  organizations 
dealing  with  college  men  and  women  know  that  any  appeal 
which  leaves  out  the  social  note* is  likely  to  meet  a  listless 
audie.ice.     The  most  effective  evang^elists  for  these  two 


4'  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

groups  are  men  who  have  thoroughly  embodied  i:he  so- 
cial gospel  in  their  religious  life  and  thought.  When 
the  great  evangelistic  effort  of  the  "Men  and  Religion 
Forward  Movement "  was  first  planned,  its  organizers 
made  room  for  "  Social  Service  "  very  hesitatingly.  But 
as  soon  as  the  movement  was  tried  out  before  the  public, 
it  became  clear  that  only  the  meetings  which  offe  "ed  the 
people  the  social  application  of  religion  were  striking  fire 
and  drawing  crowds. 

The  Great  War  has  dwarfed  and  submerged  all  other 
issues,  including  our  social  problems.  But  in  fact  the 
war  is  the  most  acute  and  tremendous  social  problem  of 
all.  All  whose  Christianity  has  not  been  ditched  by  the 
catastrophe  are  demanding  a  christianizing  of  interna- 
tional relations.  The  demand  for  disarmament  and  per- 
manent peace,  for  the  rights  of  the  small  nations  against 
the  imperialistic  and  colonizing  powers,  for  freccom  of 
the  seas  and  of  trade  routes,  for  orderly  settlement  of 
grievances, —  these  are  demands  for  social  righteousness 
and  fraternity  on  the  largest  scale.  Before  the  V/ar  the 
social  gospel  dealt  with  social  classes;  to-day  it  is  being 
translated  into  international  terms.  The  ultimaie  cause 
of  the  war  was  the  same  lust  for  easy  and  uieamed 
gain  which  has  created  the  internal  social  evils  under 
which  every  nation  has  suffered.  The  social  p-oblem 
and  the  war  problem  are  fundamentally  one  problem,  and 
the  social  gospel  faces  both.  After  the  War  the  social 
gospel  will  "  come  back  "  with  pent-up  energy  and  clearer 
knowledge. 

The  social  movement  Is  the  most  Important  ethi(  al  and 
spiritual  movement  in  the  modern  world,  and  the  social 


THE    CHALLENGE    TO    THEOLOGY  '5 

gospel  is  the  response  of  the  Christian  consciousness  to  it. 
Therefore  it  had  to  be.  The  social  gospel  registers  the 
fact  that  for  the  first  time  in  history  the  spirit  of  Christi- 
anity has  had  a  chance  to  form  a  working  partnership 
with  real  social  and  psychological  science.  It  is  the  re- 
ligious reaction  on  the  historic  advent  of  democracy.  It 
seeks  to  put  the  democratic  spirit,  which  the  Church  in- 
herited from  Jesus  and  the  prophets,  once  more  in  control 
of  the  institutions  and  teachings  of  the  Church.^  * 

/v  The  social  gospel  is  the  old  message  of  salvation,  but  '*•> 
enlarged  and  intensified.     The  individualistic  gospel  has  \  " 
taught  us  to  see  the  sinfulness  of  every  human  heart  and  I  • 
has  inspired  us  with  faith  in  the  willingness  and  power  I, 
of  God  to  save  every  soul  that  comes  to  him.     But  it  has  I 
not  given  us  an  adequate  understanding  of  the  sinful-  f 
ness  of  the  social  order  and  its  share  in  the  sins  of  all  I 
individuals  within  it.\.  It  has  not  evoked  faith  in  the  will  ' 
and  power  of  God  to  redeem  the  permanent  institutions 
of  human  society  from  their  inherited  guilt  of  oppression 
and  extortion.     Both  our  sense  of  sin  and  our  faith  in 
salvation  have  fallen  short  of  the  realities  under  its  teach- 
ing.    The  social  gospel  seeks  to  bring  men  under  repent- ^  , 
ance  for  their  collective  sins  and  to  create  a  more  sensi-l 
tive  i.nd  more  rnbdem  conscience.     It  calls  on  us  for  the  \ 

1  In  his  "  Social  Idealism  and  the  Changing  Theology,"  embody- 
ing the  Taylor  Lectures  for  1912,  Professor  Gerald  B.  Smith  has 
showr  clearly  the  discrepancy  created  by  the  aristocratic  attitude  of 
authority  in  theology  and  the  spread  of  democracy  in  modern 
ethicr!  life,  and  has  insisted  that  a  readjustment  is  necessary  in 
theol'.gy  at  this  point  to  conform  it  to  our  ethical  ideals.  Professor 
Smitl.  expresses  the  fear  that  our  critical  methods  by  themselves 
,  will  lead  only  to  a  barren  intellectualism.  That  feeling  has  been 
one  notive  in  the  writing  of  the  present  book. 


6  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL         j 

faith  of  the  old  prophets  who  believed  in  the  salvation 
of  nations. 

Now,  if  this  insight  and  religious  outlook  become  com- 
mon to  large  and  vigorous  sections  of  the  Christian 
Church,  the  solutions  of  life  contained  in  the  old  theo- 
logical system  will  seem  puny  and  inadequate.  Our  faith 
will  be  larger  than  the  intellectual  system  which  subtends 
it.  Can  theology  expand  to  meet  the  growth  of  faith? 
The  biblical  studies  have  responded  to  the  spiritual  hun- 
ger aroused  by  the  social  gospel.  The  historical  interpre- 
tation of  the  Bible  has  put  the  religious  personalities, 
their  spiritual  struggles,  their  growth,  and  their  utter- 
ances, into  social  connection  with  the  community  life  of 
which  they  were  part.  This  method  of  interpretation 
has  given  back  the  Bible  to  men  of  modernized  intelli- 
gence and  has  made  it  the  feeder  of  faith  in  the  social 
gospel.  The  studies  of  "  practical  theology  "  are  all  in  a 
process  of  rejuvenation  and  expansion  in  order  to  create 
competent  leadership  for  the  Church,  and  most  of  these 
changes  are  due  to  the  rise  of  new  ideals  created  by  the 
social  gospel.  What,  then,  will  doctrinal  theology  do  to 
meet  the  new  situation?  Can  it  ground  and  anchor  the 
social  gospel  in  the  eternal  truths  of  our  religio^i  and 
build  its  main  ideas  into  the  systematic  structure  of  chris- 
tian doctrine? 

Theology  is  not  superior  to  the  gospel.     It  exists  to 

i  aid  the  preaching  of  salvation.     Its  business  is  to  make 

'  the  essential  facts  and  principles  of  Christianity  so  s'niple 

and  clear,  so  adequate  and  mighty,  that  all  whc'  preach 

or  teach  the  gospel,  both  ministers  and  laymen,  ca    draw 


THE   CHALLENGE   TO    THEOLOGY  7 

on  its  stores  and  deliver  a  complete  and  unclouded  Chris- 
tian message.  When  the  progress  of  humanity  creates 
new  tasks,  such  as  world-wide  missions,  or  new  problems, 
such  as  the  social  problem,  theology  must  connect  these 
with  the  old  fundamentals  of  our  faith  and  make  them 
Christian  tasks  and  problems. 

The  adjustment  of  the  Christian  message  to  the  regen- 
eration of  the  social  order  is  plainly  one  of  the  most 
difficult  tasks  ever  laid  on  the  intellect  of  religious  lead- 
ers.    The  pioneers  of  the  social  gospel  have  had  a  hard 
time  trying  to  consolidate  their  old  faith  and  their  new 
aim.     Some  have  lost  their  faith ;  others  have  come  out  " 
of  the  struggle  with  crippled  formulations  of  truth.     Does 
not  our  traditional  theology  deserve  some  of  the  blame 
for  this  spiritual  wastage  because  it  left  these  men  with- 
out spiritual  support  and  allowed  them  to  become  the, 
vicarious  victims  of  our  theological  inefficiency  P^.^ If  our| 
theology^  is  silent  on  social  salvation,  we  compel  college? 
men  and  women,  workingmen,  and  theological  students,' 
to  choose  between  an  unsocial  system  of  theology  andl 
an  irreligious  system  of  social  salvation.     It  is  not  hard^ 
to  predict  the  outcome.     If  we  seek  to  keep  Christian 
doctrine  unchanged,  we  shall  ensure  its  abandonment.  X 

Instead  of  being  an  aid  in  the  development  of  the 
social  gospel,  systematic  theology  has  often  been  a  real 
clog.  When  a  minister  speaks  to  his  people  about  child 
labour  or  the  exploitation  of  the  lowly  by  the  strong; 
when  1  e  insists  on  adequate  food,  education,  recreation, 
and  a  really  human  opportunity  for  all,  there  is  response. 
People  are  moved  by  plain  human  feeling  and  by  the  in- 
stincti\  e  convictions  which  they  have  learned  from  Jesus 


8  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

Christ.  But  at  once  there  are  doubting  and  dissenting 
voices.  We  are  told  that  environment  has  no  saving 
power ;  regeneration  is  what  men  need ;  we  can  not  have  a 
-^  regenerate  society  without  regenerate  individuals ;  we  do 
not  live  for  this  world  but  for  the  life  to  come;  it  is  not 
the  function  of  the  church  to  deal  with  economic  ques- 
tions; any  effort  to  change  the  social  order  before  the 
coming  of  the  Lord  is  foredoomed  to  failure.  These  ob- 
ject's all  issue  from  the  theological  consciousness  cre- 
ated by  traditional  church  teaching.  These  half-truths 
are  the  proper  product  of  a  half-way  system  of  theology 
in  which  there  is  no  room  for  social  redemption.  Thus 
the  Church  is  halting  between  two  voices  that  call  it.  On 
the  one  side  is  the  voice  of  the  living  Christ  amid  living 
men  to-day;  on  the  other  side  is  the  voice^  of  past  ages 
embodied  in  theology.  Who  will  say  that  the  authority 
of  this  voice  has  never  confused  our  Christian  judgment 

I  and  paralysed  .our  deterniinajion, to  establish  ^odTs^king- 

I  .dom_on^earth ? 

Those  who  have  gone  through  the  struggle  for  a  clear 
faith  in  the  social  gospel  would  probably  agree  that  the 
doctrinal  theology  in  which  they  were  brought  up,  was 
one  of  the  most  baffling  hindrances  in  their  spiritual  crisis, 
and  that  all  their  mental  energies  were  taxed  lo  over- 
come the  weight  of  its  traditions.  They  were  fortunate 
if  they  promptly  discovered  some  recent  theologiciil  book 
which  showed  them  at  least  the  possibility  of  conceiving 
Christian  doctrine  in  social  terms,  and  made  them  con- 
scious of  a  fellowship  of  faith  in  their  climb  toward 
the  light.  The  situation  would  be  much  worse  if  Chris- 
tian thought  were  nourished  on  doctrine  only.     Fortu- 


THE    CHALLENGE   TO    THEOLOGY  9 

nately  our  hymns  and  prayers  have  a  richer  consciousness 
of  sohdarity  than  individuahstic  theology.  But  even  to- 
day many  ministers  have  a  kind  of  dumb-bell  system 
of  thought,  with  the  social  gospel  at  one  end  and  individ- 
ual salvation  at  the  other  end,  and  an  attenuated  connec-g 
tion  between  them.  The  strength  of  our  faith  is  in  its 
unity.  Religion  wants  wholeness  of  life.  We  need  a 
rounded  system  of  doctrine  large  enough  to  take  in  all 
our  spiritual  interests.  ^ 

In  short,  we  need  a  theology  large  enough  to  certain 
the  social  gospel,  and  alive  and  productive  enough  not 
to  hamper  it.  I 


i- 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  DIFFICULTIES  OF  THEOLOGICAL  READJUSTMENT 

A^Y  demand  for  changes  in  Christian  doctrine  is  sure 
to  cause  a  quiver  of  apprehension  and  distress.  Re- 
ligious truth  is  the  truth  our  souls  live  by  and  it  is  too 
dear  to  be  scrapped  and  made  over.  Even  to  grant  the 
possibility  of  the  need  of  change  means  a  loss  of  assur- 
ance and  certitude,  and  that  hurts.  The  passionate  in- 
terest of  many  in  the  beliefs  which  have  been  the  food 
of  their  spiritual  life  for  years  creates  a  social  resistance 
to  change  in  religious  thought.  Every  generation  tries 
to  put  its  doctrine  on  a  high  shelf  where  the  children  can 
not  reach  it.  For  instance,  the  Methodist  Church  will 
not  be  charged  with  sitting  on  the  clock,  but  its  creed  has 
been  put  beyond  the  reach  even  of  the  highest  body  of 
the  Church.  Its  "  Articles  of  Religion  "  were  an  adapta- 
tion of  the  Thirty  Nine  Articles  of  the  Church  of  England 
by  John  Wesley;  to-day  they  seem  to  have  the  better  of 
the  starry  universe,  for  they  can  never  change :  "  The 
General  Conference  shall  not  revoke,  alter,  nor  change 
our  Articles  of  Religion,  nor  establish  any  new  standards 
or  rules  of  doctrine  contrary  to  our  present  existing  and 
established  standards  of  doctrine." 

I  have  entire  sympathy  with  the  conservative  instinct 
which  shrinks  from  giving  up  any  of  the  dear  possessions 


DIFFICULTIES    OF   THEOLOGICAL   READJUSTMENT      II 

which  have  made  Hfe  holy  for  us.  We  have  none  too 
much  of  them  left.  It  is  a  comfort  to  me  to  know  that 
the  changes  required  to  make  room  for  the  social  gospel 
are  not  destructive  but  constructive.  They  involve  addi- 
tion and  not  subtraction.  The  social  gospel  calls  for  an 
expansion  in  the  scope  of  salvation  and  for  more  re- 
ligious dynamic  to  do  the  work  of  God.  It  requires  more 
faith  and  not  less.  It  offers  a  more  thorough  and  dura- 
ble salvation.  It  is  able  to  create  a  more  searching  sense 
of  sin  and  to  preach  repentance  to  the  respectable  and 
mighty  who  have  ridden  humanity  to  the  mouth  of  hell. 

The  attacks  on  our  inherited  theology  have  usually 
come  from  the  intellectuals  who  are  galled  by  the  yoke  of 
uncritical  and  unhistorical  beliefs  brought  down  from 
pre-scientific  centuries.  They  are  entirely  within  their 
right  in  insisting  that  what  is  scientifically  impossible  shall 
not  be  laid  as  an  obligatory  belief  on  the  neck  of  modern 
men  in  the  name  of  religion.  But  the  rational  subtrac- 
tions of  liberalism  do  not  necessarily  make  religion  more 
religious.  We  have  to  snuff  the  candle  to  remove  the 
burnt-out  wick,  but  we  may  snuff  out  the  flame,  and  all  the 
matches  may  prove  to  be  damp.  Critical  clarifying  is 
decidedly  necessary,  but  power  in  religion  comes  only 
through  the  consciousness  of  a  great  elementary  need 
which  compels  men  to  lay  hold  of  God  anew.  The  social 
gospel  speaks  to  such  a  need,  and  where  a  real  harmony 
has  been  established  it  has  put  new  fire  and  power  into 
the  old  faith. 

The  power  of  conservatism  is  not  all  due  to  religious 
tenderness  and  loyalty.  Some  of  it  results  from  less  wor- 
thy causes.     Doctrinal  theology  is  in  less  direct  contact 


12  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

with  facts  than  other  theological  studies.  Exegesis  and 
church  history  deal  with  historical  material  and  their 
business  is  to  discover  the  facts.  New  facts  and  the 
pressure  of  secular  scientific  work  compel  them  to  revise 
their  results  and  keep  close  to  realities.  Doctrinal  the- 
ology deals  with  less  substantial  and  ascertainable  things. 
It  perpetuates  an  esoteric  stream  of  tradition.  What 
every  church  demands  of  its  systematic  theologians  is  to 
formulate  clearly  and  persuasively  what  that  church  has 
always  held  and  taught.  If  they  go  beyond  that  they  are 
performing  a  work  of  supererogation  for  which  they  do 
not  always  receive  thanks. 

Theoretically  the  Church  is  the  great  organization  of 
unselfish  service.  Actually  the  Church  has  always  been 
profoundly  concerned  for  its  own  power  and  authority. 
But  its  authority  rests  in  large  part  on  the  stability  of  its 
doctrine.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  has  always  been 
in  the  nature  of  a  defensive  organization  to  maintain  uni- 
formity of  teaching.  The  physical  suppression  of  heresy 
was  merely  the  last  and  crudest  means  employed  by  it  to 
resist  change.  The  more  subtle  and  spiritual  forms  of 
pressure  have  doubtless  been  felt  by  every  person  who 
evei-  differed  with  his  own  church,  whatever  it  was.  This 
selfish  ecclesiastical  conservatism  is  not  for  the  Kingdom 
of  God  but  against  it.  '^ 

I     Theology  needs  periodical  rejuvenation.     Its  greatest 
-^danger  is  not  mutilation  but  senility.     It  is  strong  and 
vital  when  it  expresses  in  large  reasonings  what  youthful 
religion  feels  and  thinks.     When  people  have  to  be  in- 
doctrinated laboriously  in  order  to  understand  theology  at 


DIFFICULTIES    OF    THEOLOGICAL    READJUSTMENT       1 3 

all,  it  becomes  a  dead  burden.  The  dogmas  and  theo- 
logical ideas  of  the  early  Church  were  those  ideas  which 
at  that  time  were  needed  to  hold  the  Church  together,  to 
rally  its  forces,  and  to  give  it  victorious  energy  against 
antagonistic  powers.  To-day  many  of  those  ideas  are 
without  present  significance.  Our  reverence  for  them  is  ^^ 
a  ._kind_of  ancestoL3i^:ship.  To  hold  laboriously  to  a 
religious  belief  which  does  not  hold  us,  is  an  attenuated 
form  of  asceticism;  we  chastise  and  starve  our  intellect 
to  sanctify  it  by  holy  beliefs.  The  social  gospel  does  not 
need  the  aid  of  church  authority  to  get  hold  of  our  hearts. 
It  gets  hold  in  spite  of  such  authority  when  necessary. 
It  will  do  for  us  what  the  Nicene  theology  did  in  the 
fourth  century,  and  the  Reformation  theology  in  the  six- 
teenth. Without  it  theology  will  inevitably  become  more 
and  more  a  reminiscence.^ 

The  great  religious  thinkers  who  created  theology  were 
always  leaders  who  were  shaping  ideas  to  meet  actual  '^ 
situations.  The  new  theology  of  Paul  was  a  product  of  •. 
fresh  religious  experience  and  of  practical  necessities. 
His  idea  that  the  Jewish  law  had  been  abrogated  by 
Christ's  death  was  worked  out  in  order  to  set  his  mission 
to  the  Gentiles  free  from  the  crippling  grip  of  the  past 
and  to  make  an  international  religion  of  Christianity. 
Luther  worked  out  the  doctrine  of  "justification  by 
faith  "  because  he  had  found  by  experience  that  it  gave  '■' 

1  President  H.  C.  King's  "Reconstruction  in  Theology';  gives 
an  admirable  summary  of  the  causes  for  dissatisfaction  with_  the 
old  doctrinal  statements,  and  of  the  fundamental  moral  and  spiritual 
convictions  which  demand  embodiment  in  theology.  See  also 
Prof.  Gerald  B.  Smith's  lucid  analysis  in  his  "  Social  Idealism  and 
the  Changing  Theologj'." 


14  .     A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

him  a  surer  and  happier  way  to  God  than  the  effort  to 
win  merit  by  his  own  works.  But  that  doctrine  became 
the  foundation  of  a  new  theology  for  whole  nations  be- 
cause it  proved  to  be  the  battle-cry  of  a  great  social  and 
•religious  upheaval  and  the  effective  means  of  breaking 
down  the  semi-political  power  of  the  clergy,  of  shutting 
up  monasteries,  of  secularizing  church  property,  and  of 
increasing  the  economic  and  political  power  of  city  coun- 
cils and  princes.  There  is  nothing  else  in  sight  to-day 
which  has  power  to  rejuvenate  theology  except  the  con- 
sciousness of  vast  sins  and  sufferings,  and  the  longing  for 
righteousness  and  a  new  life,  which  are  expressed  in  the 
social  gospel. 

Every  forward  step  in  the  historical  evolution  of  re- 
ligion has  been  marked  by  a  closer  union  of  religion  and 
ethics  and  by  the  elimination  of  non-ethical  religious  per- 
formances. This  union  of  religion  and  ethics  reached 
its  highest  perfection  in  the  life  and  mind  of  Jesus.  Af- 
ter him  Christianity  quickly  dropped  back  to  the  pre- 
christian  stage.  Ceremonial  actions  and  orthodox  beliefs 
became  indispensable  to  salvation;  they  had  a  value  of 
their  own,  quite  apart  from  their  bearing  on  conduct. 
Theology  had  the  task  of  defending  and  inculcating  these 
non-ethical  ingredients  of  religion,  and  that  pulled  the- 
ology down.  It  is  clear  that  our  Christianity  is  most 
Christian  when  religion  and  ethics  are  viewed  as  insepa- 
rable elements  of  the  same  single-minded  and  whole- 
hearted life,  in  which  the  consciousness  of  God  and  the 
consciousness  of  humanity  blend  completely.  Any  new 
movement  in  theology  which  emphatically  asserts  the 


DIFFICULTIES    OF   THEOLOGICAL   READJUSTMENT        1 5 

union  of  religion  and  ethics  is  likely  to  be  a  wholesome 
and  christianizing  force  in  Christian  thought. 

The  social  gospel  is  of  that  nature.  It  plainly  con- 
centrates religious  interest  on  the  great  ethical  problems 
of  social  life.  It  scorns  the  tithing  of  mint,  anise  and 
cummin,  at  which  the  Pharisees  are  still  busy,  and  insists 
on  getting  down  to  the  weightier  matters  of  God's  law,  to 
justice  and  mercy.  It  ties  up  religion  not  only  with  duty, 
but  with  big  duty  that  stirs  the  soul  with  religious  feeling 
and  throws  it  back  on  God  for  help.  The  non-ethical 
practices  and  beliefs  in  historical  Christianity  nearly  all 
centre  on  the  winning  of  heaven  and  immortality.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  Kingdom  of  God  can  be  established 
by  nothing  except  righteous  life  and  action.  There  is 
nothing  in  social  Christianity  which  is  likely  to  breed  or 
reinforce  superstition.  The  more  the  social  gospel  en- 
gages and  inspires  theological  thought,  the  more  will  re- 
ligion be  concentrated  on  ethical  righteousness.  The  so- 
cial gospel  is  bound  to  be  a  reformatory  and  christianiz- 
ing force  inside  of  theology. 

Theology  is  the  esoteric  thought  of  the  Church.  Some 
of  its  problems  are  unknown  and  unintelligible  except 
where  the  Church  keeps  an  interest  in  them  alive.  Even 
the  terminology  of  theology  is  difficult  for  anyone  to  un- 
derstand unless  he  has  lived  under  church  influence  for 
years.  Jesus  and  his  followers  were  laymen.  The  peo- 
ple felt  that  his  teaching  was  different  from  the  argu- 
ments of  their  theologians,  less  ponderous  and  more  mov- 
ing. When  Christianity  worked  its  way  from  the  lower 
to  the  higher  classes,  its  social  sympathies  became  less 


l6  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

democratic  and  fraternal,  its  language  less  simple,  and 
its  ideas  more  speculative,  elaborate  and  remote.  Origen 
felt  he  had  to  apologize  for  the  homely  Greek  and  the 
simple  arguments  of  Jesus.  Theology  became  an  affair 
of  experts.  The  first  duty  of  the  laymen  was  to  believe 
with  all  their  hearts  what  they  could  not  possibly  under- 
stand with  all  their  heads. 

The  practical  result  has  been  that  laymen  have  always 
assented  as  they  were  told,  but  have  made  an  unconscious 
private  selection  of  the  truths  that  seemed  to  contain 
marrow  for  them.  The  working  creed  of  the  common 
man  is  usually  very  brief.  A  man  may  tote  a  large  load 
of  theology  and  live  on  a  small  part  of  it.  If  ministers 
periodically  examined  their  church  members  as  profes- 
sors examine  their  classes,  they  would  find  that  a  man 
can  be  in  the  rain  a  long  time  and  not  become  wetter 
under  the  skin.  Even  in  the  Middle  Ages,  when  all  phil- 
osophy was  theology  and  when  religious  doubt  was  rare, 
the  laity  seem  to  have  had  their  own  system  of  faith.  In 
the  memoirs  of  statesmen  and  artists  and  merchants,  in 
the  songs  of  the  common  people,  and  in  the  secret  sym- 
bolism of  the  masons  and  other  gilds,  we  find  a  simple 
faith  which  guided  their  life.  They  believed  in  God  and 
his  law,  in  immortality  and  retribution,  in  Christ  and 
his  mercy,  in  the  abiding  difference  between  righteousness 
and  evil,  and  by  this  faith  they  tried  to  do  their  duty 
where  God  had  given  them  their  job  in  life. 

The  social  gospel  approximates  lay  religion.  It  deals 
with  the  ethical  problems  of  the  present  life  with  which 
the  common  man  is  familiar  and  which  press  upon  his 
conscience.     Yet  it  appeals  to  God,  his  will,  his  kingdom ; 


DIFFICULTIES    OF    THEOLOGICAL    READJUSTMENT       1/ 

to  Christ,  his  spirit,  his  law.  Audiences  who  are  es- 
tranged from  the  Church  and  who  would  listen  to  the- 
ological terminology  with  frank  scorn,  will  listen  with  ab- 
sorbed interest  to  religious  thought  when  it  is  linked  with 
their  own  social  problems. 

Theology  ought  not  to  pare  down  its  thought  to  the 
rudimentary  ideas  of  untrained  people.  But  every  in- 
fluence which  compels  it  to  simplify  its  terms  and  to  deal 
with  actual  life  is  a  blessing  to  theology.  Theological 
professors  used  to  lecture  and  write  in  Latin.  There  is 
perhaps  no  other  language  in  which  one  can  utter  plati- 
tudes so  sonorously  and  euphoniously.  It  must  have  been  \ 
a  sanitary  sweating  off  of  adipose  tissue  when  theology  \ 
began  to  talk  in  the  vernacular.  It  will  be  a  similar  in- 
crease of  health  when  theology  takes  in  hand  the  problems 
of  social  redemption  and  considers  how  its  doctrines  con- 
nect with  the  Kingdom  of  God  in  actual  realization. 

The  renovating  effect  of  the  social  gospel  would  aid 
theology  to  meet  the  really  modern  religious  needs. ' 
Heart  religion  is  always  a  cry  of  need.  Men  pray  be- 
cause a  burden  is  on  their  life;  sickness  threatens  them; 
a  child  is  in  danger;  some  morbid  passion  has  gained  a 
footing  in  their  mind  or  body  and  can  not  be  shaken  off ; 
some  evil  has  been  done  which  can  not  be  undone.  The 
need  is  beyond  their  own  strength.  So  they  cry  to  a 
higher  Power  to  help,  to  forgive,  to  cleanse,  to  save. 

Now,  many  of  the  fears  and  burdens  which  drove  men 
to  the  altars  of  their  gods  in  the  past  are  being  eased  in' 
modern  life.  People  are  learning  to  trace  diseases  to 
natural  causes  instead  of  the  evil  eye,  or  the  devil,  or  the 


l8  A   THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

anger  of  God.  Even  the  streptococcus  has  a  friendlier 
look  than  the  omnipresent  devils  that  haunt  a  Burmese 
hill  tribe.  Men  used  to  feel  acute  guilt  if  they  had  com- 
mitted some  ritual  oversight,  such  as  touching  a  taboo 
thing,  eating  meat  on  Friday,  or  working  on  the  Sab- 
bath. The  better  teachings  of  modern  Christianity  and 
general  religious  indifference  have  combined  to  reduce 
that  sort  of  fear  and  guilt. 

On  the  other  hand  we  are  becoming  much  more  sensi- 
tive about  collective  sins  in  which  we  are  involved.  I 
have  a  neighbour  who  owns  stock  in  a  New  England  cot- 
ton mill.  Recently  the  company  opened  a  factory  in 
North  Carolina  and  began  to  employ  child  labour. 
This  man's  young  daughter  faded  away  when  she  was 
emerging  from  childhood,  and  so  he  thinks  of  the  other 
girls,  who  are  breathing  cotton  fluff  for  him.  A  corre- 
spondent wrote  me  whose  husband,  a  man  of  national 
reputation,  had  bought  stock  in  a  great  steel  company. 
She  is  a  Jewess  and  a  pacifist.  When  the  plant  began 
to  devote  itself  to  the  manufacture  of  shrapnel  and 
bombs  in  1915,  she  felt  involved.  But  what  was  her 
husband  to  do  with  the  stock?  Would  it  make  things 
better  if  he  passed  the  war-stained  property  to  another 
man?  I  know  a  woman  whose  father,  back  in  the 
nineties,  took  a  fortune  out  of  a  certain  dirty  mill  town. 
She  is  now  living  on  his  fortune;  but  the  children  of  the 
mill-hands  are  living  on  their  misfortune.  No  effort  of 
hers  can  undo  more  than  a  fraction  of  the  evil  which 
was  set  in  motion  while  that  fortune  was  being  accumu- 
lated. 

If  these  burdens  of  conscience  were  foolish  or  morbid, 


DIFFICULTIES    OF   THEOLOGICAL    READJUSTMENT        IQ 

increased  insight  and  a  purer  Christian  teaching  would 
lift  them.  But  it  is  increased  insight  and  Christian  feel- 
ing which  created  them.  An  unawakened  person  does 
not  inquire  on  whose  Hfe  juices  his  big  dividends  are  fat- 
tening. Upper-class  minds  have  been  able  to  live  para- 
sitic lives  without  any  fellow-feeling  for  the  peasants  or 
tenants  whom  they  were  draining  to  pay  for  their  leisure. 
Modern  democracy  brings  these  lower  fellow-men  up  to 
our  field  of  vision.  Then  if  a  man  has  drawn  any  real 
religious  feeling  from  Christ,  his  participation  in  the  sys- 
tematized oppression  of  civilization  will,  at  least  at  times, 
seem  an  intolerable  burden  and  guilt.  Is  this  morbid? 
Or  is  it  morbid  to  live  on  without  such  realization? 
Those  who  to-day  are  still  without  a  consciousness  of 
collective  wrong  must  be  classified  as  men  of  darkened 
mind. 

These  are  distinctly  modern  burdens.  They  will  con- 
tinue to  multiply  and  increase.  Does  the  old  theology 
meet  them?  Was  it  competent  to  meet  the  religious 
problems  raised  by  the  war?  Can  personal  forgiveness 
settle  such  accounts  as  some  men  run  up  with  their  fellow- 
men  ?  Does  Calvinism  deal  adequately  with  a  man  who 
appears  before  the  judgment  seat  of  Christ  with  $50,000,- 
000  and  its  human  corollaries  to  his  credit,  and  then 
pleads  a  free  pardon  through  faith  in  the  atoning  sac- 
rifice? 

Religious  experience,  as  William  James  has  shown  us, 
has  many  varieties,  and  some  are  distinctly  higher  than 
others.  The  form  most  common  among  us  has  come 
through  an  intense  concentration  on  a  man's  own  sins,  his 


20  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

needs,  his  destiny.  In  the  Old  Testament  we  have  a 
number  of  accounts  describing  how  men  of  the  highest 
type  of  God-consciousness  made  their  fundamental  ex- 
perience of  God  and, received  their  prophetic  mission.  In 
none  of  these  cases  did  the  prophet  struggle  for  his  per- 
sonal salvation  as  later  Christian  saints  have  done.  His 
woe_didjaQt-£Qme.  through  fear  of  persona]  damnation. 
biiLillI2M§Liii5,,,^nse_Qf_solidarI  and 

through  social  feeling;  his  hope  and  comfort  was  not  for 
himself  alone  but  for  his  nation.  This  form  of  religious 
experience  is  more  distinctively  Christian  than  any  form 
which  is  caused  by  fear  and  which  thinks  only  of  self.  It 
contains  larger  possibilities  of  personal  growth  and  re- 
ligious power. 

The  social  gospel  creates  a  type  of  religious  experience 
corresponding  closely  to  the  prophetic  type.  It  fuses  the 
Christian  spirit  and  the  social  consciousness  in  a  new  out- 
reaching  toward  God  and  in  remarkable  experiences  of 
his  comfort  and  inspiring  power.  This  is  the  most  youth- 
ful, modern,  and  effective  form  of  present-day  religion. 

Religious  experience  reacts  on  theology.  Consider  the 
men  who  have  turned  theological  thought  into  new  chan- 
nels—  Paul,  Augustine,  Luther,  Fox,  Wesley,  Schleier- 
macher.  These  were  all  men  who  had  experienced  God 
at  first  hand  and  while  under  the  pressure  of  new  prob- 
lems. Then  they  generalized  on  the  basis  of  their  ex- 
perience. Paul,  for  instance,  had  borne  the  weight  of 
the  Law;  he  had  found  his  own  efforts  futile;  he  had 
found  Christ  gracious,  free,  and  a  power  of  life.  On  this 
experience  he  built  his  theology.  A  like  experience  under 
Catholic  legalism  enabled  Luther  to  understand  Paul ;  he 


DIFFICULTIES   OF   THEOLOGICAL   READJUSTMENT      21 

revitalized  the  Pauline  theology,  built  a  theology  of  eman- 
cipation on  that,  and  threw  out  of  religious  practice  and 
thought  what  was  not  in  agreement  with  his  experience 
and  its  formula. 

The  rank  and  file  of  us  have  no  genius  and  can  not 
erect  our  personal  experience  into  a  common  standard. 
But  our  early  experiences  act  as  a  kind  of  guide  by  which 
we  test  what  seems  to  have  truth  and  reality.  We  select 
those  theoretical  ideas  which  agree  with  our  experience, 
and  are  cold  to  those  which  have  never  entered  into  our 
life.  When  such  a  selective  process  is  exercised  by  many 
active  minds,  who  all  act  on  the  same  lines,  the  total  effect 
on  theological  thought  is  considerable.  This  is  a  kind  of 
theological  referendum,  a  democratic  change  in  theology 
on  the  basis  of  religious  experience. 

Connect  these  two  propositions :  that  an  experience  of  \ 
religion  through  the  medium  of  solidaristic  social  feeling  ) 
is  an  experience  of  unusually  high  ethical  quality,  akin  to  / 
that  of  the  prophets  of  the  Bible ;  and  second,  that  a  fresh\ 
and  clearly  marked  religious  experience  reacts  on  theol- 1 
ogy.     Can  we  not  justly  expect  that  the  increasing  in-'^ 
fluence  of  the  social  gospel  and  all  that  it  stands  for,  will 
have  a  salutary  influence  on  theology?     The  social  gospel 
has  already  restored  the  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
which  held  first  place  with  Tesus  but  which  individuaHstic 
tjieolo^r^carefully  wrapped  in  several  napkins  and  forgot. 
Theology  always  needs  rejuvenation.     Most  of  all  in  a 
great  epoch  of  change  like  ours.     Yet  change  always 
hurts.     If  change  must  come,  the  influence  of  the  social 
gospel  is  the  most  constructive  and  wholesome  channel 
by  which  it  could  possibly  come.     Surely  theology  will 


12  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

not  become  less  Christian  by  widening  the  scope  of  salva- 
tion, by  taking  more  seriously  the  burden  of  social  evil, 
and  by  learning  to  believe  in  the  Kingdom  of  God.  The 
proclamation  of  the  social  gospel  would  evoke  the  pro- 
phetic spirit  in  the  exponents  of  doctrinal  theology. 
Then  they  would  have  to  seek  boldness  and  authority 
from  the  living  spirit  of  God.  Theology  has  a  right  to 
the  forward  look  and  to  the  fire  of  religious  vision. 


CHAPTER  III 

NEITHER  ALIEN  NOR  NOVEL 

In  these  introductory  chapters  my  aim  is  to  win  the   .'' 
benevolent  and  serious  attention  of  conservative  readers 
for  the  discussions  that  are  to  follow.     I  have  thus  far 
tried  to  show  that  the  spread  of  the  social  gospel  will  in- 
evitably react  on  theology,  and  that  this  influence  is  likely 
to  be  constructive  and  salutary.     Let  us  add  the  impor-  | 
tant  fact  that  the  social  gospel  imports  into  theology  | 
nothing  that  is  new  or  alien.  '^ 

Frequent  attempts  have  been  made  in  the  history  of 
our  religion  to  blend  alien  elements  with  it.  The  early 
Gnostics  and  the  mediaeval  Albigenses,  for  instance,  tried 
to  combine  historical  Christianity  with  dualistic  concep- 
tions of  the  universe  and  strict  asceticism.  Modern 
Mormonism,  Theosophy,  and  Christian  Science  represent 
syncretistic  formations,  minglings  of  genuine  Christian- 
ity with  new  and  alien  elements. 

The  belief  in  the  universal  reign  of  law,  the  doctrine 
of  evolution,  the  control  of  nature  by  man,  and  the  value 
of  education  and  liberty  as  independent  goods,— these 
are  among  the  most  influential  convictions  of  modern 
life  and  have  deeply  modified  our  religious  thought.  But 
they  are  novel  elements  in  theolog}\  They  are  not  alien, 
but  certainly  they  held  no  such  controlling  position  in  the 
theology  of  the  past  as  they  do  with  us.  We  may  dis- 
23 


24  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

cover  prophetic  forecasts  of  them  in  the  Bible,  but  we 
have  to  look  for  them. 

On  the  other  hand  the  idea  of  the  redemption  of  the 
social  organism  is  nothing  alien.  It  is  simply  a  proper 
part  of  the  Christian  faith  in  redemption  from  sin  and 
evil.  As  soon  as  the  desire  for  salvation  becomes  strong 
and  intelligent  enough  to  look  beyond  the  personal  sins 
of  the  individual,  and  to  discern  how  our  personality  in 
its  intake  and  output  is  connected  with  the  social  groups 
to  which  we  belong,  the  problem  of  social  redemption  is 
before  us  and  we  can  never  again  forget  it.  It  lies  like 
a  larger  concentric  circle  around  a  smaller  one.  It  is 
related  to  our  intimate  personal  salvation  like  astronomy 
to  physics.  Only  spiritual  and  intellectual  immaturity 
have  kept  us  from  seeing  it  clearly  before.  The  social 
gospel  is  not  an  alien  element  in  theology. 

Neither  is  it  novel.  The  social  gospel  is,  in  fact,  the 
oldest  gospel  of  all.  It  is  "  built  on  the  foundation  of  the 
apostles  and  prophets."  Its  substance  is  the  Hebrew 
faith  which  Jesus  himself  held.  If  the  prophets  ever 
talked  about  the  "  plan  of  redemption,"  they  meant  the 
social  redemption  of  the  nation.  So  long  as  John  the 
Baptist  and  Jesus  were  proclaiming  the  gospel,  the  King- 
dom of  God  was  its  central  word,  and  the  ethical  teach- 
ing of  both,  which  was  their  practical  commentary  and 
definition  of  the  Kingdom  idea,  looked  toward  a  higher 
social  order  in  which  new  ethical  standards  would  become 
practicable.  To  the  first  generation  of  disciples  the  hope 
of  the  Lord's  return  meant  the  hope  of  a  Christian  social 
order  on  earth  under  the  personal  rule  of  Jesus  Christ, 


NEITHER    ALIEN    NOR    NOVEL  2^ 

and  they  would  have  been  amazed  if  they  had  learned  that 
this  hope  was  to  be  motioned  out  of  theology  and  other 
ideas  substituted. 

The  social  gospel  is  nothing  alien  or  novel.     When  it 
comes  to  a  question  of  pedigree  and  birth-right,  it  may 
well  turn  on  the  dogma^  on  which  the  Catholic  and  Prot-  , 
estant  theologies  are  based  and  inquire  for  their  birth 
certificate.     They  are  neither  dominant  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament nor  clearly  defined  in  it.     The  more  our  historical  - 
investigations    are   laying   bare    the    roots    of    Catholic 
dogma,  the  more  do  we  see  them  running  back  into  alien 
Greek  thought,  and  not  into  the  substance  of  Christ's 
message  nor  into  the  Hebrew  faith.     We  shall  not  get 
away  again  from  the  central  proposition  of  Harnack's; 
History  of  Dogma,  that  the  development  of  Catholic  \ 
dogma  was  the  process  of  the  Hellenization  of  Christian-  ? 
ity ;  in  other  words,  that  alien  influences  streamed  into  the  , 
religion  of  Jesus  Christ  and  created  a  theology  which  he  ; 
never  taught  nor  intended.     What  would  Jesus  have  said  ■ 
to  the  symbol  of  Chalcedon  or  the  Athanasian  Creed  if 
they  had  been  read  to  him  ? 

The  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  was  left  unde-^ 
veloped  by  individualistic  theology  and  finally  mislaid  by| 
it  almost  completely,  because  it  did  not  support  nor  fit  in  | 
with  that  scheme  of  doctrine.  In  the  older  handbooks  ,; 
of  theology  it  is  scarcely  mentioned,  except  in  the  chapters  ; 
on  eschatology;  in  none  of  them  does  it  dominate  the  •; 
table  of  contents.  What  a  spectacle,  that  the  original  ■ 
teaching  of  our  Lord  has  become  an  incongruous  element 
in  so-called  evangelical  theology,  like  a  stranger  wnth 
whom  the  other  doctrines  would  not  associate,  and  who 


26  A    THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

was  finally  ejected  because  he  had  no  wedding  garment ! 
In  the  same  way  the  distinctive  ethics  of  Jesus,  which  is 
part  and  parcel  of  his  Kingdom  doctrine,  was  long  the 
hidden  treasure  of  suppressed  democratic  sects.  Now, 
as  soon  as  the  social  gospel  began  once  more  to  be 
preached  in  our  own  time,  the  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom 
was  immediately  loved  and  proclaimed  afresh,  and  the 
ethical  principles  of  Jesus  are  once  more  taught  without 
reservation  as  the  only  alternative  for  the  greedy  ethics  of 
capitalism  and  militarism.  These  antipathies  and  affini- 
ties are  a  strong  proof  that  the  social  gospel  is  neither 
alien  nor  novel,  but  is  a  revival  of  the  earliest  doctrines  of 
Christianity,  of  its  radical  ethical  spirit,  and  of  its  revo- 
lutionary consciousness. 

The  body  of  ideas  which  we  call  the  social  gospel  is 
not  the  product  of  a  fad  or  temporary  interest ;  it  is  not  an 
alien  importation  or  a  novel  invention;  it  is  the  revival 
of  the  most  ancient  and  authentic  gospel,  and  the  scientific 
unfolding. of  essential  elements  of  Christian  doctrine 
which  have  remained  undeveloped  all  too  long;  the  rise 
of  the  social  gospel  is  not  a  matter  of  choice  but  of  des- 
tiny ;  the  digestion  of  its  ideas  will  exert  a  quickening  and 
reconstructive  influence  on  every  part  of  theology. 

The  verification  of  these  propositions  lies  in  the  fu- 
ture. But  I  believe  that  a  survey  of  the  history  of  the- 
ology during  the  last  hundred  years  would  already  cor- 
roborate the  inevitableness  and  the  fruitfulness  of  the 
essential  ideas  of  the  social  gospel.  The  trend  of  theol- 
ogy has  been  this  way,  and  wherever  the  social  nature  of 
Christianity  has  been  clearly  understood,  a  new  under- 


NEITHER   ALIEN    NOR   NOVEL  Q.'J 

Standing  for  other  theological  problems  has  followed. 
The  limits  of  this  book  do  not  permit  such  a  survey,  and 
I  have  not  the  accurate  and  technical  knowledge  of  the 
literature  of  doctrinal  theology  to  do  justice  to  the  sub- 
ject. It  would  be  an  attractive  subject  for  a  specialist  to 
trace  the  genesis  and  progress  of  the  social  gospel  in  sys- 
tematic theology.  The  following  paragraphs  are  simply 
by  way  of  suggestion. 

So  far  as  my  observation  of  doctrinal  handbooks  goes, 
it  seems  that  those  writers  whose  minds  were  formed  be- 
fore the  eighties  rarely  show  any  clear  comprehension  of 
social  points  of  view.  We  move  in  a  different  world  of 
thought  when  we  read  their  books.  It  would  pay  the 
reader  to  test  this  for  himself  by  reading  the  table  of 
contents  and  scanning  crucial  sections  of  any  standard 
American  theologian  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  The  terms,  the  methods,  the  problems,  and  the 
guiding  interests  lie  far  away.  If  any  social  ideas  do 
occur,  they  are  most  often  the  dutiful  explanation  of  ideas 
derived  from  Hebrew  religion.  Those  individuals  of 
that  era  who  did  strike  out  into  social  conceptions  of 
Christianity  deserve  the  name  and  honour  of  prophets. 

Among  the  earlier  German  theologians  Friedrich| 
Schleiermacher,  Richard  Rothe,  and  Albrecht  Ritschl 
seem  to  me  to  deserve  that  title.  The  constructive 
genius  of  Schleiermacher  worked  out  solidaristic  concep- 
tions of  Christianity  which  were  far  ahead  of  his  time. 
Ritschl  built  his  essential  ideas  of  the  kingdom  of  evil 
and  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  Schleiermacher's  work,  and 
stressed  the  teaching  of  Luther  that  our  service  to  God 
consists,  not  in  religious  performances,  but  in  the  faith- 


28  A   THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

ful  work  we  do  in  our  secular  calling.  The  practical  im- 
portance of  these  elements  of  Ritschl's  theology  is  proved 
by  the  strong  social  spirit  pervading  the  younger  Ritschl- 
ian  school.  The  moderate  liberals  grouped  in  the 
"  Evangelisch-soziale  Kongress "  and  organized  as 
"  Freunde  der  Christlichen  Welt "  and  "  Freunde  evan- 
gelischer  Freiheit "  all  have  social  orientation.  Pro- 
fessor Herrmann  and  Professor  Troeltsch  have  definitely 
faced  the  relation  between  systematic  theology  and  the 
social  task  of  Christianity.  The  monumental  work  of 
Troeltsch,  "  die  Soziallehren  der  christlichen  Kirchen 
und  Gruppen,"  is  the  first  and  chief  attempt  to  apply 
the  methods  of  the  history  of  doctrine  to  the  social  con- 
victions and  hopes  of  the  Churches.  Conservative  the- 
ology is  naturally  less  responsive  to  the  newer  influences. 
But  the  wonderful  work  of  the  "  Innere  Mission  "  since 
Wichern,  and  the  social  reconstruction  of  Germany,  in 
which  the  conservative  parts  of  the  nation  have  taken  a 
full  share,  have  not  left  their  conception  of  the  mission 
of  Christianity  untouched. 

Switzerland  democratizes  whatever  it  handles.  The 
"  Religios-sozialen  "  in  German  Switzerland  have  more 
political  radicalism  and  more  religious  enthusiasm  for  the 
doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  than  the  corresponding 
German  groups.  They  have  done  thorough  and  inspiring 
work  on  the  combination  of  social  and  theological  ideas, 
especially  Ragaz,  Kutter,  Matthieu,  Benz,  and  Rein- 
hardt 

Social  and  democratic  idealism  is  one  of  the  most  ac- 
tive ingredients  in  Catholic  Modernism.  The  French 
Protestants,   though  they  number  only  about  700,000, 


NEITHER   ALIEN    NOR    NOVEL  29 

have  produced  a  social  and  socialist  literature  of  a  rich- 
ness and  maturity  which  puts  our  greater  numbers  to 
shame,  and  witnesses  to  the  intellectual  fertility  of  French 
life.  Auguste  Sabatier,  Charles  Secretan,  Tomy  Fallot, 
Wilfred  Monod,  Elie  Gounelle,  and  Paul  Passy  occur  to 
me  among  those  who  have  given  doctrinal  formulation  to 
the  social  gospel. 

Great  Britain  has  been  the  foremost  capitalistic  nation 
for  a  century  and  a  half.  Its  religion  and  theology  have 
necessarily  matched  its  individualistic  political  economy 
and  political  philosophy.  When  the  early  Christian  So- 
cialists, Frederick  Denison  Maurice  and  Charles  Kings- 
ley,  first  asserted  solidaristic  ideas  on  theology  and  social 
questions,  they  justly  felt  that  they  were  preaching  a  new 
and  prophetic  gospel  in  the  midst  of  a  Babylon  of  com- 
petitive selfishness.  The  trend  of  things  is  strikingly 
brought  out  by  the  contrast  between  their  lonely  position 
in  the  revolutionary  year  of  1848  and  the  Anglican  Con- 
gress of  1908,  where  Christian  Socialism  was  in  posses- 
sion of  the  platform  and  only  Lord  Cecil  made  a  stand 
against  it.  It  is  significant  that,  so  far  as  the  social  gos- 
pel is  concerned,  the  High  Church  section  has  become 
Broad,  and  some  of  its  intellectual  leaders  are  weaving 
solidaristic  ideas  into  their  most  sacramental  and  eccle- 
siastical doctrines.  At  the  same  time  the  Free  Church 
leaders  have  worked  their  way  out  of  individualistic 
Evangelicalism,  and  are  freely  applying  their  heritage  of 
democratic  faith  to  the  social  problems. 

Of  course  I  am  not  now  discussing  the  popular  propa- 
ganda of  social  Christianity,  nor  the  growth  of  organiza- 
tions for  its  practical  application,  but  simply  the  reaction 


30  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

of  the  social  gospel  on  doctrinal  theology.^  In  our  coun- 
try, many  of  the  younger  men  in  the  North  who  have 
written  on  theology  have  shown  that  the  problems  of  so- 
ciety are  a  vital  concern  with  them,  and  their  fresh  theo- 
logical work  consists  largely  in  understanding  the  rela- 
tion between  social  life  and  religion.  I  am  thinking  of 
William  A.  Brown,  John  W.  Buckham,  William  H.  P. 
Faunce,  Thomas  B.  Hall,  Henry  D,  Hyde,  Rufus  Jones, 
Henry  C.  King,  Shailer  Mathews,  Francis  G.  Peabody, 
Gerald  B.  Smith,  George  B.  Stevens,  and  James  B. 
Thomas,  but  I  am  sure  this  enumeration  is  very  incom- 
plete. Some  of  the  best  work  is  done  in  the  class  rooms, 
and  has  not  yet  come  out  in  print. 

When  we  contrast  the  neglect  of  the  social  contents  of 
Christianity  in  former  generations,  and  the  fertile  intel- 
lectual work  now  being  given  to  this  part  of  theology,  a 
strong  probability  is  established  that  the  social  gospel  is 
not  a  passing  interest,  but  that  it  is  bound  to  become  one 
of  the  permanent  and  commanding  ingredients  of  theol- 
ogy. 

1 1  sketched  the  Social  Awakening  in  the  Churches  in  the  first 
part  of  "  Christianizing  the  Social  Order."  But  that  was  written 
in  1912. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    CONSCIOUSNESS    OF    SIN 

It  remains  now  to  pass  in  review  the  doctrines  which 
would  be  affected  by  the  social  gospel  and  which  ought 
to  give  more  adequate  expression  to  it.  On  some  of  the 
more  speculative  doctrines  the  social  gospel  has  no  con- 
tribution to  make.  Its  interests  lie  on  earth,  within  the 
social  relations  of  the  life  that  now  is.  It  is  concerned] 
with  the  eradication  of  sin  and  the  fulfilment  of  the  mis-| 
sion  of  redemption.  The  sections  of  theology  which! 
ought  to  express  it  effectively,  therefore,  are  the  doc.trines 
of  sin  and  redemption. 

The  Christian  consciousness  of  sin  is  the  basis  of  all 
doctrines  about  sin.  A  serious  and  humble  sense  of  sin- 
fulness is  part  of  a  religious  view  of  life.  Our  conscious- 
ness of  sin  deepens  as  our  moral  insight  matures  and  be- 
comes religious.  When  we  think  on  the  level  of  law  or 
public  opinion,  we  speak  of  crime,  vice,  bad  habits,  or  de- 
fective character.  When  our  mind  is  in  the  attitude  of 
religion,  we  pray :  "  Create  in  me  a  clean  heart,  O  God, 
and  renew  a  right  spirit  within  me."  When  a  man  is 
within  the  presence  and  consciousness  of  God,  he  sees 
himself  and  hrs  past  actions  and  present  conditions  in  the 
most  searching  light  and  in  eternal  connections.  To  lack 
the  consciousness  of  sin  is  a  symptom  of  moral  immatur- 


32  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

ity  or  of  an  effort  to  keep  the  shutters  down  and  the  Hght 
out.  The  most  highly  developed  individuals,  who  have 
the  power  of  interpreting  life  for  others,  and  who  have 
the  clearest  realization  of  possible  perfection  and  the 
keenest  hunger  for  righteousness,  also  commonly  have  the 
most  poignant  sense  of  their  own  shortcomings. 

By  our  very  nature  we  are  involved  in  tragedy.  In 
childhood  and  youth  we  have  imperious  instincts  and  de- 
sires to  drive  us,  and  little  knowledge  to  guide  and  control 
us.  We  commit  acts  of  sensuality,  cruelty,  or  dishonour, 
which  nothing  can  wipe  from  our  memory.  A  child  is 
drawn  into  harmful  habits  which  lay  the  foundation  for 
later  failings,  and  which  may  trip  the  man  again  when 
his  powers  begin  to  fail  in  later  life.  How  many  men 
and  women  have  rushed  with  the  starry  eyes  of  hope  into 
relations  which  brought  them  defilement  of  soul  and  the 
perversion  of  their  most  intimate  life,  but  from  which 
they  could  never  again  extricate  themselves  by  any 
wrench.  "  Forgive  us  our  trespasses.  Lead  us  not  into 
temptation."  The  weakness  or  the  stubbornness  of  our 
will  and  the  tempting  situations  of  life  combine  to  weave 
the  tragic  web  of  sin  and  failure  of  which  we  all  make 
experience  before  we  are  through  with  our  years. 

Any  religious  tendency  or  school  of  theology  must  be 
tested  by  the  question  whether  it  does  justice  to  the  re- 
ligious consciousness  of  sin.  Now,  one  cause  of  distrust 
against  the  social  gospel  is  that  its  exponents  often  fail 
to  show  an  adequate  appreciation  of  the  power  and  guilt 
of  sin.  Its  teachings  seem  to  put  the  blame  for  wrong- 
doing: on  the  environment,  and  instead  of  stiffening  and 


THE    CONSCIOUSNESS   OF   SIN  33 

awakening  the  sense  of  responsibility  in  the  individual,  it 
teaches  him  to  unload  it  on  society. 

There  is  doubtless  truth  in  this  accusation.  The  em- 
phasis on  environment  and  on  the  contributory  guilt  of 
the  community,  does  offer  a  chance  to  unload  responsi- 
bility, and  human  nature  is  quick  to  seize  the  chance. 
But  the  old  theology  has  had  its  equivalents  for  environ- 
ment. Men  unloaded  on  original  sin,  on  the  devil,  and 
on  the  decrees  of  God.  Adam  began  soon  after  the  fall 
to  shift  the  blame.  This  shiftiness  seems  to  be  one  of 
the  clearest  and  most  universal  effects  of  original  sin. 

Moreover,  there  is  an  unavoidable  element  of  moral 
unsettlement  whenever  the  religious  valuation  of  sin  is 
being  reconsidered.  Paul  frequently  and  anxiously  de- 
fended his  gospel  against  the  charge  that  his  principle  of 
liberty  invited  lawlessness,  and  that  under  it  a  man  might 
even  sin  the  more  in  order  to  give  grace  the  greater  chance. 
We  know  what  the  Hebrew  prophets  thought  of  the  sac- 
rificial cult  and  moral  righteousness,  but  we  are  not  in- 
formed about  the  unsettling  effect  which  their  teaching 
may  have  had.  If  we  could  raise  up  some  devout  priest 
of  the  age  of  Amos  or  Isaiah  to  give  us  his  judgment  on 
the  theology  of  the  prophets,  he  would  probably  assure  us 
that  these  men  doubtless  meant  well,  but  that  they  had  no 
adequate  sense  of  sin;  they  belittled  the  sacrifices  insti- 
tuted by  Moses ;  but  sacrificing,  as  all  men  knew,  was  the 
true  expression  and  gauge  of  repentance. 

In  the  early  years  of  the  Reformation,  Catholic  ob- 
servers noted  a  distressing  looseness  in  the  treatment  of 
sin.  Men  no  longer  searched  their  consciences  in  the 
confessional;  they  performed  no  works  of  penance  to 


34  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

render  satisfaction  to  God  and  to  prove  their  contrition; 
they  no  longer  used  the  ascetic  means  of  holiness  to  sub- 
due their  flesh  and  to  gain  victory  over  the  powers  of 
darkness.     Luther  had  taught  them  that  God  required 
nothing  but  faith,  and  that  all  accounts  could  be  squared 
by  agreeing  to  call  them  square.     By  any  standard  of 
measurement  known  to  Catholics,  the  profounder  con- 
sciousness of  sin  was  with  the  old  theology  and  its  prac- 
tical applications.     In  point  of  fact,  the  Reformation  did 
upset  the  old  means  of  moral  control  and  did  create  wide- 
spread demoralization.     But  in  time,  Geneva,  Holland,  or 
Scotland  showed  a  deeper  consciousness  of  sin  than  Rome 
or  Paris.     The  sense  of  sin  found  new  outlets. 
.•:     The  delinquencies  of  a  new  movement  are  keenly  ob- 
I'served  because  they  are  new;  the  shortcomings  of  an  old 
I  system  are  part  of  the  accepted  scheme  of  life.     If  the 
exponents  of  the  old  theology  have  taught  humanity  an 
adequate  consciousness  of  sin,  how  is  it  that  they  them- 
selves have  been  blind  and  dumb  on  the  master  iniquities 
of  human  history?     During  all  the  ages  while  they  were 
the  theological  keepers  of  the  conscience  of  Christendom, 
the  peasants  in  the  country  and  the  working  class  in  the 
cities  were  being  sucked  dry  by  the  parasitic  classes  of 
^society,  and  war  was  damning  poor  humanity.     Yet  what 
•traces  are  there  in  traditional  theology  that  the  minds  of 
fold-line  theologians  were  awake  to  these  magnificent  man- 
jifestations  of  the  wickedness  of  the  human  heart?     How 
is  it  that  only  in  the  modern  era,  since  the  moral  Insight 
of  mankind  has  to  some  extent  escaped  from  the  tuition 
of  the  old  theology,  has  a  world-wide  social  movement 
'.arisen  to  put  a  stop  to  the  exploitation  of  the  poor,  and 


THE    CONSCIOUSNESS   OF   SIN  35 

that  only  in  the  last  three  years  has  war  been  realized  as/ 
the  supreme  moral  evil?  One  of  the  culminating  accu-: 
sations  of  Jesus  against  the  theological  teachers  of  hiS; 
time  was  that  they  strained  at  gnats  and  swallowed, 
camels,  judiciously  laying  the  emphasis  on  the  minor  sins': 
and  keeping  silence  on  the  profitable  major  wrongs.  It  is ^( 
possible  to  hold  the  orthodox  doctrine  on  the  devil  and  not  - 
recognize  him  when  we  meet  him  in  a  real  estate  office 
or  at  the  stock  exchange. 

A  health  officer  of  Toronto  told  me  a  story  which  illus- 
trates the  consciousness  of  sin  created  by  the  old  religious 
teaching.  If  milk  is  found  too  dirty,  the  cans  are  emptied 
and  marked  with  large  red  labels.  This  hits  the  farmer 
where  he  lives.  He  may  not  care  about  the  health  of 
Toronto,  but  he  does  care  for  the  good  opinion  of  his 
own  neighbourhood,  and  when  he  drives  to  the  station  and 
finds  his  friends  chuckling  over  the  red  labels  on  his  cans, 
it  acts  as  a  moral  irritant.  One  day  a  Mennonite  farmer 
found  his  cans  labeled  and  he  swore  a  worldly  oath.  The 
Mennonites  are  a  devout  people  who  take  the  teachings 
of  Christ  seriously  and  refuse  to  swear,  even  in  law- 
courts.  This  man  was  brought  before  his  church  and  ex- 
cluded. But,  mark  well,  not  for  introducing  cow-dung 
into  the  intestines  of  babies,  but  for  expressing  his  belief 
in  the  damnation  of  the  wicked  in  a  non-theological  way. 
When  his  church  will  hereafter  have  fully  digested  the 
social  gospel,  it  may  treat  the  case  this  way :  "  Our 
brother  was  angry  and  used  the  name  of  God  profanely 
in  his  anger ;  we  urge  him  to  settle  this  alone  with  God. 
But  he  has  also  defiled  the  milk  supply  by  unclean  meth- 
ods.    Having  the  life  and  health  of  young  children  in 


36  A   THEOLOGY   .^OR    THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

his  keeping,  he  has  failed  in  his  trust.  Voted,  that  he  be 
excluded  until  he  has  proved  his  lasting  repentance." 
The  result  would  be  the  same,  but  the  sense  of  sin  would 
do  its  work  more  intelligently. 

In  his  "  Appeal  to  the  Christian  Nobility,"  Luther  said 
that  in  consequence  of  the  many  fast  days  and  the  insist- 
ence of  the  priests  on  their  observance,  the  people  had 
come  to  a  point  where  they  regarded  it  as  a  greater  sin 
to  eat  butter  on  a  fast  day  than  to  lie,  swear,  or  commit 
fornication.  An  eminent  minister  in  New  York  enumer- 
ated as  the  chief  marks  of  a  Christian  that  he  attends 
church,  reads  the  Bible,  and  contributes  to  the  support  of 
public  worship.  A  less  eminent  minister  in  the  same 
place  mentioned  as  the  four  sins  from  which  a  Christian 
must  abstain,  drinking,  dancing,  card  playing,  and  going 
to  the  movies.  And  this  in  New  York  where  the  capital- 
istic system  of  the  nation  comes  to  a  head ! 

It  may  well  be  that  with  some  individuals  there  is  a 
loss  of  seriousness  in  the  sense  of  sin  as  a  result  of  the 
social    gospel.     But    on    the   whole   the    result    consists 
chiefly  in  shifting  the  emphasis  and  assigning  a  new  valu- 
ation to  different  classes  of  sins.     Attention  is  concen- 
trated on  questions  of  public  morality,  on  wrongs  done 
by  whole  classes  or  professions  of  men,  on  sins  which  en- 
ervate and  submerge  entire  mill  towns  or  agricultural 
states.     These  sins  have  been  side-stepped  by  the  old  the- 
ology.    We  now  have  to  make  up  for  a  fatal  failure  in 
past  teaching. 
I      We  feel  a  deep  consciousness  of  sin  when  we  realize 
\  that  we  have  wasted  our  years,  dissipated  our  energies, 
;  left  our  opportunities  unused,    frustrated  the  grace  of 


THE    CONSCIOUSNESS    OF    SIN  '37 

God,  and  dwarfed  and  shamed  the  personaHty  which  God!, 
intended  when  he  called  us  into  life.  It  is  a  similar  and; 
even  deeper  misery  to  realize  that  our  past  life  has  hurt- 
and  blocked  the  Kingdom  of  God,  the  sum  of  all  good, 
the  essential  aim  of  God  himself.  Our  duty  to  the  King- 
dom of  God  is  on  a  higher  level  than  all  other  duties. 
To  aid  it  is  the  supreme  joy.  To  have  failed  it  by  our ; 
weakness,  to  have  hampered  it  by  our  ignorance,  to  have 
resisted  its  prophets,  to  have  contradicted  its  truths,  to 
have  denied  it  In  time  of  danger,  to  have  betrayed  it  for 
thirty  pieces  of  silver, —  this  is  the  most  poignant  con- 
sciousness of  sin.  The  social  gospel  opens  our  eyes  to 
the  ways  in  which  religious  men  do  all  these  things.  It 
plunges  us  in  a  new  baptism  of  repentance. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    FALL    OF    MAN 

We  are  familiar  with  the  teachings  of  traditional  the- 
ology on  the  first  entrance  of  sin  into  the  life  of  the  race : 
the  state  of  innocence  of  our  first  parents ;  the  part  played 
by  Satan  in  tempting  them;  the  motives  and  experiences 
of  the  fall ;  the  apostasy  of  the  entire  race  through  the 
disobedience  of  its  head;  the  transmission  of  depravity 
and  death  to  all ;  the  imputation  of  Adam's  guilt  to  all  his 
descendants ;  the  ruin  of  the  divine  plan  for  humanity  by 
the  perversity  of  sin. 

The  motives  of  theology  In  elaborating  so  fully  an 
event  so  remote  were  partly  philosophical  and  partly  re- 
ligious. 

The  philosophical  motive  was  the  desire  for  a  coherent 
explanation  of  our  universe  and  its  present  baffling  mix- 
ture of  good  and  evil.  The  story  of  the  fall,  as  inter- 
preted by  theology,  furnished  an  outline  for  a  philosoph- 
ical history  of  the  race.  It  was  the  first  act  in  a  great 
racial  tragedy  which  was  to  end  with  the  final  judgment 
The  fact  that  a  mind  like  Milton's  took  the  fall  as  the 
theme  for  a  great  epic,  and  that  his  poem  was  accepted 
as  a  poetic  treatment  of  the  highest  realities,  shows  how 
the  doctrine  of  the  fall  dominated  common  thought. 

The  religious  motive  in  elaborating  the  doctrine  of  the 
fall  was  the  desire  to  bring  all  men  under  conviction  of 
38 


THE    FALL    OF    MAN  39 

sin  and  condemnation  in  order  that  all  might  realize  their 
need  of  grace  and  salvation.  There  was  no  need  to  prove 
the  guilt  of  any  one  individual  when  all  were  in  a  state 
of  corruption.  It  was  not  a  question  of  this  act  or  that, 
but  of  the  state  of  apostasy  from  which  all  acts  proceeded 
and  by  which  even  our  virtues  are  contaminated.  The 
terribleness  of  sin  became  clear  only  by  scanning  the 
height  from  which  man  had  fallen.  He  once  had  a  pure 
consciousness  of  God;  he  now  has  a  mind  darkened  by 
sin  and  unable  to  know  God.  He  had  a  will  set  on  holi- 
ness ;  he  now  has  a  will  set  on  evil  and  rebellion.  He  had 
love  of  goodness,  harmony  of  the  higher  and  lower  pow- 
ers, freedom  from  suffering,  power  over  nature,  and  the 
grace  of  God.  He  lost  it  all.  Consequently  he  is  unable 
to  save  himself.  Only  the  grace  of  God  can  save  him. 
We  can  see  this  religious  motive  at  work  in  the  great  the- 
ologians of  sin  and  grace,  Paul,  Augustine,  Luther,  and 
Calvin.  They  abased  man  to  glorify  God's  mercy.  They 
took  away  all  "  boasting."  They  shut  all  doors  on  the 
prisoner  of  sin  except  the  door  of  grace  in  order  to  com- 
pel him  to  emerge  through  that. 

It  is  important  to  realize  that  the  story  of  the  fall  is  in- 
comparably more  fundamental  in  later  theology  than  it 
was  in  biblical  thought.  The  conspicuous  place  given  to 
Genesis  in  the  arrangement  of  the  Hebrew  canon,  itself 
concentrated  the  attention  of  later  times  on  it.  The  story 
now  embodied  in  Genesis  iii  was  part  of  the  Jahvist  nar- 
rative, a  document  of  Ephraimitic  origin  dating  back  to 
the  ninth  century  B.C.  The  original  purpose  of  the  story 
was  not  to  explain  the  origin  of  sin,  but  the  origin  of 


40  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

I  death  and  evil.  There  are  scarcely  any  allusions  to  the 
story  in  the  Old  Testament.  The  prophets  were  deeply 
conscious  of  the  sins  o£  men,  but  they  did  not  base  their 
teachings  on  the  doctrine  of  the  fall.  Not  till  we  reach 
post-biblical  Jewish  theology  is  there  any  general  interest 
in  the  story  of  Adam's  fall.  Even  then  the  story  of  the 
fall  of  the  angels  in  Genesis  vi  attracted  more  interest. 

In  the  synoptic  sayings  of  Jesus  there  is  not  even  a 
reference  to  the  fall  of  Adam.     In  the  fourth  gospel^ 
there  is  one  allusion,  (John  viii,  44).     Jesus,  of  course, 
had  the  clearest  consciousness  of  the  chasm  between  the 
will  of  God  and  the  actual  condition  of  mankind.     The 
universality  of  sin  was  a  matter  of  course  with  him ;  it  was 
presupposed  in  all  his  teaching.     But  he  was  concerned 
only  with  those  sources  of  sin  which  he  saw  in  active  work 
about  him:  first,  the  evil  heart  of  man  from  which  all 
,  evil  words  and  actions  proceed ;  second,  the  social  stum- 
bling blocks  of  temptation  which  make  the  weak  to  fall; 
and  third,  the  power  of  the  Kingdom  of  Evil.     On  the 
other  hand  the  first  origin  of  evil  seems  to  have  been 
\  so  distant  in  his  mind  that  it  did  not  readily  slip  into  any 
i  discussions  of  sin  which  are  preserved  to  us.     His  inter- 
I  est  was  practical  and  not  speculative,  religious  and  ethical 
[  and  not  philosophical./' 

Not  until  we  come  to  Paul  do  we  find  any  full  and 
serious  use  of  the  story  of  the  fall  in  the  Bible.  He  twice 
(Romans  v  and  I  Corinthians  xv)  set  over  against  each 
other  the  carnal  humanity  descended  from  Adam  and 
characterized  by  sin  and  mortality,  and  the  spiritual  hu- 
manity descended  from  Christ  and  characterized  by  holi- 
ness and  eternal  life.     These  passages  belong  to  the  theo- 


THE    FALL    OF    MAN  41 

logical  portions  of  Paul's  writings  and  were  eagerly 
seized  by  the  patristic  writers  as  congenial  raw  material 
for  their  work. 

When  once  theology  concentrated  on  the  story  it  was 
expanded  by  exegetical  inferences,  by  allegorical  embel- 
lishments, and  by  typology,  until  it  conveyed  far  more 
than  it  actually  contained.  It  comes  as  a  shock  to  real- 
ize, for  instance,  that  the  story  in  Genesis  itself  does 
not  indicate  that  the  writer  understood  the  serpent  to  be 
Satan,  or  Satan  to  be  speaking  through  the  serpent. 
Moreover,  we  find  so  few  traces  of  any  belief  in  Satan 
in  Hebrew  thought  before  the  Exile  that  it  seems  doubt- 
ful if  contemporary  readers  would  have  understood  him 
to  be  meant  unless  further  indications  made  the  refer- 
ence clear. 

Here,  then,  we  have  two  different  methods  of  treat- | 
ing  the  story  of  the  fall.     Theology  has  given  it  basic; 
importance.     It  has  built  its  entire  scheme  of  thought; 
on  the  doctrine  of  the  fall.     Jesus  and  the  prophets  paid  j 
little  or  no  attention  to  it.     They  were  able  to  see  sin  j 
clearly  and  to  fight  it  with  the  highest  energy  without 
depending  on  the   doctrine  of  the   fall   for  a   footing. 
Only  with  Paul  is  the  story  clearly  of  religious  import- 
ance, and  even  with  him  It  Is  not  as  central  as  for  in- 
stance the  antagonism  between  spirit  and  flesh.     It  of- 
fered him  a  wide  spiritual  perspective  and  a  means  of  j 
glorifying  Christ.  j 

Two  things  seem  to  follow.  First,  that  the  tradi- 1; 
tlonal  doctrine  of  the  fall  is  the  product  of  speculative; 
Interest  mainly,  and  that  the  most  energetic  conscious- j 
ness  of  sin  can  exist  without  drawing  strength  from  this  | 


42  A   THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

doctrine.  Second,  that  if  the  substance  o£  Scriptural 
;  thought,  the  constant  and  integral  trend  of  biblical  con- 
ivictions,  is  the  authoritative  element  in  the  Bible,  the 
[doctrine  of  the  fall  does  not  seem  to  have  as  great  an 
I  authority  as  it  has  long  exercised. 

How  does  this  affect  the  special  gospel?  What  doc- 
trinal teaching  on  this  point  is  able  to  give  it  the  most 
effective  backing? 

The  social  gospel  is  above  all  things  practical.  It 
needs  religious  ideas  which  will  release  energy  for  heroic 
opposition  against  organized  evil  and  for  the  building 
of  a  righteous  social  life.  It  would  find  entire  satisfac- 
tion in  the  attitude  of  Jesus  and  the  prophets  who  dealt 
with  sin  as  a  present  force  and  did  not  find  it  necessary 
to  indoctrinate  men  on  its  first  origin.  It  would  have 
no  motive  to  be  interested  in  a  doctrine  which  diverts  at- 
tention from  the  active  factors  of  sin  which  can  be  influ- 
enced, and  concentrates  attention  on  a  past  event  which 
no  effort  of  ours  can  influence. 

-  Theology  has  made  the  catastrophe  of  the  fall  so 
complete  that  any  later  addition  to  the  inheritance  of  sin 
seems  slight  and  negligible.  What  can  be  worse  than  a 
state  of  total  depravity  and  active  enmity  against  God 
and  his  will  ?  ^  Consequently  theology  has  had  little  to 
say  about  the  contributions  which  our  more  recent  fore- 

iThe  Helvetic  Confession,  II,  Chapter  8:  "We  understand 
original  sin  to  be  the  native  corruption  of  man  which  has  passed 
from  our  first  parents  to  us;  through  which,  being  sunk  in  de- 
praved desires,  averse  to  good,  inclined  to  every  evil,  full  of  every 
wickedness,  of  contempt  and  hatred  of  God,  we  are  unable  to  do 
or  even  to  think  any  good  whatever." 


THE   FALL   OF    MAN  43 

fathers  have  made  to  the  sin  and  misery  of  mankind. 
The  social  gospel  would  rather  reserve  some  blame  for 
them,  for  their  vices  have  afflicted  us  with  syphilis,  their 
graft  and  their  wars  have  loaded  us  with  public  debts, 
and  their  piety  has  perpetuated  despotic  churches  and  un- 
believable creeds.     One  of  the  greatest  tasks  in  religious) 
education  reserved  for  the  social  gospel  is  to  spread  in'': 
society  a  ^pn^p_rr[_thp_so]idarity_  of_siLCC_essive  .g.eaera-: 
tions  and  a  sense  of_responsibilitv  for  tho.s_e_who.^_re  to: 
come  after,  us  and  whom  we  are  now  outfitting  with^ 
the  fundamental  conditions  of  existence.     This  is  one|^ 
of  the  sincerest  and  most  durable  means  of  spiritual  re- 
straint.    It  is  hard  to  see  how  the  thought  of  Adam  and 
Eve  can  very  directly  influence  young  men  and  women 
who  are  to  be  the  ancestors  of  new  generations.     In  so 
far  as  the  doctrine  of  the  fall  has  made  all  later  actions 
of  negligible  importance  by  contrast,  it  blocks  the  way 
for  an  important  advance  in  the  consciousness  of  sin. 

The  traditional  doctrine  of  the  fall  has  taught  us  to 
regard  evil  as  a  kind  of  unvarying  racial  endowment, 
which  is  active  in  every  new  life  and  which  can  be  over- 
come only  by  the  grace  offered  in  the  Gospel  and  min- 
istered by  the  Church.  It  would  strengthen  the  appeal 
of  the  social  gospel  if  evil  could  be  regarded  instead 
as  a  variable  factor  in  the  life  of  humanity,  which  it  is 
our  duty  to  diminish  for  every  young  life  and  for  every 
new  generation. 

These,  it  seems  to  me,  are  the  points  at  which  the 
social  gospel  impinges  on  the  doctrine  of  the  fall  of  man. 

Of  course  evolutionary  thought  has  radically  changed 
the  conceptions  about  the  origin  of  the  race  for  those 


44  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

whose  thinking  is  done  under  the  influence  o£  evolution- 
ary science.  Such  will  take  little  interest  in  the  discus- 
sion of  this  chapter.  But  there  are  many  conservative 
minds  who  can  not  recast  their  thought  in  wholly  new 
moulds;  the  story  of  the  fall  is  a  serious  religious  and 
intellectual  burden  to  some  of  them.  The  more  theology 
bases  all  its  reasoning  on  the  doctrine  of  the  fall,  the 
greater  is  the  collapse  and  mental  distress  when  a  man 
comes  to  realize  that  the  biblical  story  of  the  fall  will 
not  bear  the  tremendous  weight  which  the  theological  sys- 
tem of  the  past  has  put  upon  it.  For  such  the  attitude 
suggested  in  this  chapter  seems  to  offer  a  way  which  is 
satisfying  to  both  the  religious  and  the  scientific  con- 
science. They  can  not  be  going  far  wrong  if  they  take 
the  attitude  taken  by  the  Hebrew  prophets  and  by  Jesus 
himself,  concentrating  their  energies  on  the  present  and 
active  sources  of  evil  and  leaving  the  question  of  the  first 
origin  of  evil  to  God.  On  that  basis  it  is  possible  to 
preach  both  an  individualistic  and  a  social  gospel  with 
full  effectiveness. 


A   CHAPTER  VI 

THE    NATURE   OF   SIN    -  ^ 

It  is  not  easy  to  define  sin,  for  sin  is  as  elastic  and 
complicated  as  life  itself.  Its  quality,  degree,  and  culpa- 
bility vary  according  to  the  moral  intelligence  and  ma- 
turity of  the  individual,  according  to  his  social  free- 
dom, and  his  power  over  others.  Theologians  have 
erred,  it  seems  to  me,  by  fitting  their  definitions  to  the 
most  highly  developed  forms  of  sin  and  then  spreading 
them  over  germinal  and  semi-sinful  actions  and  con- 
ditions. 

We  are  equipped  with  powerful  appetites.  We  are 
often  placed  in  difficult  situations,  which  constitute  over- 
whelming temptations. ,.,  We  are  all  relatively  ignorant, 
and  while  we  experiment  with  life,  we  go  astray.  Some 
of  our  instincts  may  become  rampant  and  overgrown, 
and  then  trample  on  our  inward  freedom.  We  are 
gifted  with  high  ideals,  with  a  wonderful  range  of  pos- 
sibilities, with  aspiration  and  longing,  and  also  weighted 
with  inertia  and  moral  incapacity  to  achieve.  We  are 
keenly  alive  to  the  call  of  the  senses  and  the  pleasures 
of  the  moment,  and  only  dimly  and  occasionally  con- 
scious of  our  own  higher  destiny,  of  the  mystic  value  of 
personality  in  others,  and  of  God. 

This  sensual  equipment,  this  ignorance  and  inertia, 
out  of  which  our  moral  delinquencies  <^prout,  are  part 

45 


46  A    THEOLOGY   FOR    THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

of  our  human  nature.     We  did  not  order  it  so.     Instead 
of  increasing  our  guilt,  our  make-up  seems  to  entitle  us 
to  the  forbearing  judgment  of  every  onlooker,  especially 
God.     Yet  no  doubt  we  are  involved  in  objective  wrong 
and  evil;  we  frustrate  our  possibilities;  we  injure  others; 
we  disturb  the  divine  harmonies.     We  are  unfree,  un- 
happy, conscious  of  a  burden  which  we  are  unable  to  lift 
or  escape. 
j\\     Sin  becomes  guilt  in  the  full  sense  in  the  degree  in 
fwhich  intelligence  and  will  enter.     We  have  the  impulse 
to  live  our  life,  to  exercise  our  freedom,  to  express  and 
satisfy  the  limitless  cravings  in  us,  and  we  are  impatient 
of  restraint,  v' We  _ know  that  our  idleness  or  sensuality 
will  cripple  our  higher  self,  yet  we  want  what  we  want. 
We  set  our  desires  against  the  rights  of  others,  and  dis- 
regard the  claims  of  mercy,  of  gratitude,  or  of  parental 
love.     Our  self-love  is  wrought  up  to  hot  ill-will,  hate, 
.,  lying,  slander,  and  malevolence.     Men  press  their  covet- 
lousness  to  the  injury  of  society.     They  are  willing  to 
I  frustrate  the  cause  of  liberty  and  social  justice  in  whole 
i  nations  in  order  to  hold  their  selfish  social  and  economic 
4  privileges.     Men  who  were  powerful  enough  to  do  so, 
have  left  broad  trails  of  destruction  and  enslavement 
through  history  in  order  to  satisfy  their  selfish  caprice, 
avarice,  and  thirst  for  glory. 

Two  things  strike  us  as  we  thus  consider  the  develop- 
;  ment  of  sin  from  its  cotyledon  leaves  to  its  blossom  and 
I  fruit.  First,  that  the  element  of  selfishness  emerges  as 
r  the  character  of  sin  matures.  Second,  that  in  the  higher 
i\  forms  of  sin  it  assumes  the  aspect  of  a  conflict  between 
!'  the  selfish  Ego  and  the  common  good  of  humanity;  or. 


THE   NATURE    OF    SIN  47 

expressing  it  in  religious  terms,  it  becomes  a  conflict 

between  self  and  God. 

The   three  forms   of   sin, —  sensuousness,   selfishness,'^:    ..^, 

and  godlessness, —  are  ascending  and  expanding  stages, 

in  which  we  sin  against  our  higher  self,  against  the  good-j    ,  y 

of  men,  and  against  the  universal  ^ood.    V  *  V  ' 

/\ 

Theology  with  remarkable  unanimity  has  discerned  • 
that  sin  is  essentially  selfishness.  This  is  an  ethical  and  '  " 
social  definition,  and  is  proof  of  the  unquenchable  social 
spirit  of  Christianity.  It  is  more  essentially  Christian 
than  the  dualistic  conception  of  the  Greek  Fathers,  who 
thought  of  sin  as  fundamentally  sensuousness  and  ma- 
teriality, and  saw  the  chief  consequence  of  the  fall  in  the 
present  reign  of  death  rather  than  in  the  reign  of  selfish- 
ness. 

The  definition  of  sin  as  selfishness  furnishes  an  ex- 
cellent theological  basis  for  a  social  conception  of  sin 
and  salvation.  But  the  social  gospel  can  contribute  a 
good  deal  to  socialize  and  vitalize  it. 

Theology  pictures  the  self-affirmation  of  the  sinner 
as  a  sort  of  solitary  duel  of  the  will  between  him  and  •■ 
God.     We  get  a  mental  image  of  God  sitting  on  his 
throne  in  glory,  holy  and  benevolent,   and  the  sinner 
down  below,  sullenly  shaking  his  fist  at  God  while  he 
repudiates  the  divine  will  and  chooses  his  own.     Now,  ^ 
in  actual  life  such  titanic  rebellion  against  the  Almighty     ) 
is  rare.     Perlfeps  our  Puritan   forefathers  knew  more 
cases  than  we^  because  their  theological  God  was  accus- 
tomed to  issue  arbitrary  decrees  which  invited  rebellion.. 
^e  do  not  rebel;  we  dodge  and  evade.     We  kneel  inf  j-'''' 


48  A   THEOLOGY   FOR  .THE  •S0C7.AL   GOSPEL 

|lowly  submission  and  kick  our  duty  under  the  bed  while 
|God  is  not  looking.    .  - 

The  theological  definitions  of  sin  have  too  much  the 
flavour  of  the, monarchical  institutions  under  the  spirit- 
ual influence  '.of  which  they  were  first  formed.     In  an 
absolute  monarchy  the  first  duty  is  to  bow  to  the  royal 
will.     A  man  .may  spear  peasants  or  outrage  their  wives, 
but  crossing  the  king  is  another  matter.     When  theo- 
logical definitions  speak  of  rebellion  against  God  as  the 
common  characteristic  of  all  sin,  it  reminds  one  of  the 
readiness  of  despotic  governments  to  treat  every  offence 
as  treason. 
t-_    Sin  is  not  a  private  transaction  between  the  sinner 
(and  God.     Humanity  always  crowds  the  audience-room 
Uvhen  God  holds  court.     We  must  democratize  the  con- 
Iception  of  God;  then  the  definition  of  sin  will  become 
fmore  realistic.       \/ 

We  love  and  serve  God  when  we  love  and  serve  our 
fellows,  whom  he  loves  and  in  whom  he  lives.  We  rebel 
against  God  and  repudiate  his  will  when  we  set  our  profit 
and  ambition  above  the  welfare  of  our  fellows  and  above 
the  Kingdom  of  God  which  binds  them  together. 

We  rarely  sin  against  God  alone.  The  decalogue 
gives  a  simple  illustration  of  this.  Theology  used  to 
distinguish  between  the  first  and  second  table  of  the 
decalogue ;  the  first  enumerated  the  sins  against  God  and 
the  second  the  sins  against  men.  Jesus  took  the  Sabbath 
commandment  off  the  first  table  and  added  it  to  the 
second;  he  said  the  Sabbath  is  not  a  taboo  day  of  God, 
but  an  institution  for  the  good  of  man.  The  command 
to  honour  our  parents  is  also  ethical.     There  remain 


THE    NATURE    OF    SIN  '49 

the  first  three  commandments,  against  polytheism,  image 
worship,  and  the  misuse  of  the  holy  name.  The  wor- 
ship of  varjous_gods  and  the  use  of  idols  is  no  longer 
one  of  our  dangers.  The  misuse  of  the  holy  name  has 
lost  much  of  its  religious  significance  since  sorcery  and 
magic  have  moved  to  the  back-streets.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  commandments  of  the  second  table  grow  more 
important  all  the  time.  Science  supplies  the  means  of 
killing,  finance  the  methods  of  stealing,  the  newspapers 
have  learned  how  to  bear  false  witness  artistically  to  a 
globeful  of  people  daily,  and  covetousness  is  the  moral 
basis  of  our  civilization.  '; 

God  is  not  only  the  spiritual  representative  of  hu- 
manity; he  is  identified  with  it.  In  him  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being.  In  us  he  lives  and  moves, 
though  his  being  transcends  ours.  He  is  the  life  and 
light  in  every  man  and  the  mystic  bond  that  unites  us  all. 
He  is  the  spiritual  power  behind  and  beneath  all  our 
aspirations  and  achievements.  He  works  through  hu- 
manity to  realize  his  purposes,  and  our  sins  block  and 
destroy  the  Reign  of  God  in  which  he  might  fully  reveal 
and  realize  himself.  Therefore  our  sins  against  the 
least  of  our  fellow-men  in  the  last  resort  concern  God. 
Therefore  when  we  retard  the  progress  of  mankind,  we 
retard  the  revelation  of  the  glory  of  God.,. <  Our  uni-'i 
verse  is  not  a  despotic  monarchy,  with  Gocl  above  the| 
starry  canopy  and  ourselves  down  here ;  it  is  a  spiritual  i 
commonwealth  with  God  in  the  midst  of  us.  i  \ 

We  are  on  Christian  ground  when  we  insist  on  put- 
ting humanity  into  the  picture.  Jesus  always  deliber- 
ately and  energetically  bound  man  and  God  together. 

/ 


? 


so  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

He  would  not  let  us  deal  with  man  apart  from  God,  nor 
with  God  apart  from  man.  We  can  not  have  forgive- 
ness from  God  while  we  refuse  forgiveness  to  any  man. 
"  What  ye  have  done  to  these,  ye  have  done  to  me;  what 
ye  have  not  done  to  these,  ye  have  not  done  to  me." 
This  identification  of  the  interests  of  God  and  man  is 
characteristic  of  the  religion  of  Jesus.  Wherever  God 
is  isolated,  we  drop  back  to  a  pre-Christian  stage  of 
religion. 

.^  Sin  is  essentially  selfishness.  That  definition  is  more 
.  in  harmony  with  the  social  gospel  than  with  any  indi- 
■  vidualistic  type  of  religion.  The  sinful  mind,  then,  is 
the  unsocial  and  anti-social  mind.  To  find  the  climax 
of  sin  we  must  not  linger  over  a  man  who  swears,  or 
sneers  at  religion,  or  denies  the  mystery  of  the  trinity, 
but  put  our  hands  on  social  groups  who  have  turned  the 
patrimony  of  a  nation  into  the  private  property  of  a 
small  class,  or  have  left  the  peasant  labourers  cowed, 
degraded,  demoralized,  and  without  rights  in  the  land.^ 
When  we  find  such  in  history,  or  in  present-day  life, 
we  shall  know  we  have  struck  real  rebellion  against  God 
on  the  higher  levels  of  sin. 

^  We  have  defined  sin.  But  we  need  more  than  defini- 
tion. We  need  realization  of  its  nature  in  order  to 
secure  the  right  religious  attitude  toward  it. 

Sin  is  always  revealed  by  contrast  to  righteousness. 
We  get  an  adequate  intellectual  measure  of  it  and  feel 

II  have  just' been  reading  "The  Secret  of  Rural  Depopulation," 
an  account  of  the  condition  of  the  agricultural  laborers  in  England 
by  Lieut-Col.  D.  C.  Pedder,  1904.  Fabian  Tract  No.  118.  The 
Fabian  Society,  3  Clement's  Inn,  Strand,  W.  C,  London  ' 


THE    NATURE   OF   SIN  5I 

the  proper  hate 'and  repugnance  for  it  only  when  we  see 
it  as  the  terrible  defeat  and  frustration  of  a  great  good 
which  we  love  and  desire. 

Theology  has  tried  to  give  us  such  a  realization  of 
sin  by  elaborating  the  contrast  between  the  sinless  con- 
dition of  Adam  before  the  fall  and  his  sinful  condition 
after  it.  But  there  are  objections  to  this.  In  the  first 
place  of  course  we  do  not  know  whether  Adam  was  as 
perfect  as  he  is  portrayed.  Theology  has  ante-dated 
conceptions  of  human  perfection  which  we  have  derived 
from  Jesus  Christ  and  has  converted  Adam  into  a  per- 
fect Christian.  Paul  does  nothing  of  the  kind.  In  the 
second  place,  any  interpretation  of  the  nature  of  sin 
taken  from  Adam  will  be  imperfect,  because  Adam's- 
situation  gave  very  limited  opportunities  for  selfishness, 
which  is  the  essence  of  sin.  He  had  no  scope  to  exhibit 
either  the  virtues  or  the  sinful  vices  which  come  out  in 
the  pursuits  of  commerce  or  politics.  The  only  persons 
with  whom  he  could  associate  were  God,  Eve,  and  Satan. 
Consequently  theology  lacked  all  social  details  in  de- 
scribing his  condition  before  and  after  the  fall.  It  could 
only  ascribe  to  him  the  virtues  of  knowing  and  loving 
God  and  of  having  no  carnal  concupiscence,  and,  by 
contrast,  after  the  fall  he  lost  the  love  and  knowledge  of 
God  and  acquired  carnal  desires.  Thus  a  fatal  turn 
toward  an  individualistic  conception  of  sin  was  given  to 
theology  through  the  solitariness  of  Adam. 

A  better  and  more  Christian  method  of  getting  a  re- 
ligious realization  of  sin  is  to  bring  before  our  minds 
the  positive  ideals  of  social  righteousness  contained  in 
the  person  of  Christ  and  in  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and 


52  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

see  sin  as  the  treasonable  force  which  frustrates  and 
wrecks  these  ideals  and  despoils  the  earth  of  their  enjoy- 
ment. It  is  Christ  who  convicts  the  world  of  sin  and 
not  Adam.  The  spiritual  perfection  of  Jesus  consists 
in  the  fact  that  he  was  so  simply  and  completely  filled 
with  the  love  of  God  and  man  that  he  gave  himself  to 
the  task  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  without  any  reservation 
or  backsliding.  This  is  the  true  standard  of  holiness. 
The  fact  that  a  man  is  too  respectable  to  get  drunk  or  to 
swear  is  no  proof  of  his  righteousness.  His  moral  and 
religious  quality  must  be  measured  by  the  intelligence 
and  single-heartedness  with  which  he  merges  his  will 
and  life  in  the  divine  purpose  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
By  contrast,  a  man's  sinfulness  stands  out  in  its  true 
proportion,  not  when  he  is  tripped  up  by  ill-temper  or 
side-steps  into  shame,  but  when  he  seeks  to  establish  a 
private  kingdom  of  self-service  and  is  ready  to  thwart 
and  defeat  the  progress  of  mankind  toward  peace,  to- 
ward justice,  or  toward  a  fraternal  organization  of 
economic  life,  because  that  would  diminish  his  political 
privileges,  his  unearned  income,  and  his  power  over  the 
working  classes. 

It  follows  that  a  clear  realization  of  the  nature  of 
sin  depends  on  a  clear  vision  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
We  can  not  properly  feel  and  know  the  reign  of  or- 
ganized wrong  now  prevailing  unless  we  constantly  see 
it  over  against  the  reign  of  organized  righteousness. 
Where  the  religious  conception  of  the  Kingdom  of  God 
is  wanting,  men  will  be  untrained  and  unfit  to  see  or  to 
estimate  the  social  manifestations  of  sin. 


THE  -NVrURE   OF   SIN  53 

?This  proposition  gives  a  solemn  and  terrible  impor- 
tance to  the  fact  that  doctrinal  theology  has  failed  to 
cherish  and  conserve  for  humanity  the  doctrine  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  Christ  died  for  it.  Theology  has 
allowed  it  to  lead  a  decrepit,  bed-ridden  and  senile 
existence  in  that  museum  of  antiquities  which  we  call 
eschatology.  Having  lost  its  vision  of  organized  right- 
eousness, theology  necessarily  lost  its  comprehension  of 
organized  sin,  and  therewith  its  right  and  power  to  act 
as  the  teacher  of  mankind  on  that  subject.  It  saw 
private  sin,  and  it  set  men  to  wrestling  with  their  private 
doubts  or  sexual  emotions  by  ascetic  methods.  But  if 
sin  is  selfishness,  how  did  that  meet  the  case? 

It  would  be  unfair  to  blame  theology  for  the  fact 
that  our  race  is  still  submerged  under  despotic  govern- 
ment, under  war  and  militarism,  under  landlordism,  and 
under  predatory  industry  and  finance.  But  we  can 
justly  blame  it  for  the  fact  that  the  Christian  Church 
even  now  has  hardly  any  realization  that  these  things 
are  large-scale  sins.  We  can  blame  it  in  part  for  the 
fact  that  when  a  Christian  minister  in  our  country  speaks 
of  these  sins  he  is  charged  with  forgetting  the  simple 
gospel  of  sin  and  salvation,  and  is  in  danger  of  losing 
his  position.  This  comes  of  shelving  the  doctrine  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  or  juggling  feeble  substitutes  into  its 
place.  Theolog>'  has  not  been  a  faithful  steward  of  the 
truth  entrusted  to  it.  The  social  gospel  is  its  accusing 
conscience. 
y  This  is  the  chief  significance  of  the  social  gospel  for 
^  the  doctrine  of  sin:  it  revives  the  vision  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God.     When  men  see  the  actual  world  over  against 


54  A    TILEOLOGY    FOR    TEK   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

the  religious  ideal,  they  become  conscious  of  its  con- 
stitutional defects  and  wrongs. /'xThose  who  do  their 
thinking  in  the  light  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  make  less 
of  heresy  and  private  sins.  They  reserve  their  shudders 
for  men  who  keep  the  liquor  and  vice  trade  alive  against 
public  intelligence  and  law;  for  interests  that  organize 
powerful  lobbies  to  defeat  tenement  or  factory  legisla- 
tion, or  turn  factory  inspection  into  sham;  for  nations 
that  are  willing  to  set  the  world  at  war  in  order  to  win 
or  protect  colonial  areas  of  trade  or  usurious  profit  from 
loans  to  weaker  peoples;  and  for  private  interests  which 
are  willing  to  push  a  peaceful  nation  into  war  because 
the  stock  exchange  has  a  panic  at  the  rumour  of  peace. 
These  seem  the  unforgivable  sins,  the  great  demonstra- 
tions of  rebellious  selfishness,  wherever  the  social  gospel 
has  revived  the  faith  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

Two  aspects  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  demand  special 
consideration  in  this  connection :  the  Kingdom  is  the 
realm  of  love,  and  it  is  the  commonwealth  of  labour. 

Jesus  Christ  superimposed  his  own  personality  on  the 
previous  conception  of  God  and  made  love  the  distinc- 
tive characteristic  of  God  and  the  supreme  law  of  human 
conduct.  Consequently  the  reign  of  God  would  be  the 
reign  of  love.  It  is  not  enough  to  think  of  the  Kingdom 
as  a  prevalence  of  good  will.  The  institutions  of  life 
must  be  fundamentally  fraternal  and  co-operative  if 
they  are  to  train  men  to  love  their  fellowmen  as  co- 
workers. Sin,  being  selfish,  is  covetous  and  grasping. 
It  favours  institutions  and  laws  which  permit  unrestricted 
exploitation   and   accumulation.     This   in   turn  sCl-s   up 


THE    NATURE   OF    SIN  55 

antagonistic  interests,  increases  law  suits,  class  hostility, 
and  wars,  and  so  miseducates  mankind  that  love  and  co- 
operation seem  unworkable,  and  men  are  taught  to  put 
their  trust  in  coercive  control  by  the  strong  and  in  the 
sting  of  hunger  and  compulsion  for  the  poor. 

Being  the  realm  of  love,  the  Kingdom  of  God  must 
also  be  the  commonwealth  of  co-operative  labour,  for 
how  can  we  actively  love  others  without  serving  their 
needs  by  our  abilities?  If  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  a 
community  of  highly  developed  personalities,  it  must 
also  be  an  organization  for  labour,  for  none  can  realize 
himself  fully  without  labour.  A  divinely  ordered  com- 
munity, therefore,  would  offer  to  all  the  opportunities  of 
education  and  enjojment,  and  expect  from  all  their 
contribution  of  labour. 

Here  again  we  realize  the  nature  of  sin  over  against 
the  religious  ideal  of  society.  Sin  selfishly  takes  from 
others  their  opportunities  for  self-realization  in  order  to 
increase  its  own  opportunities  abnormally;  and  it  shirks 
its  own  labour  and  thereby  abnormally  increases  the 
labour  of  others.  Idleness  is  active  selfishness;  it  is 
not  only  unethical,  but  a  sin  against  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
To  lay  a  heavy  burden  of  support  on  our  fellows,  usually 
on  the  weakest  classes,  and  to  do  no  productive  labour 
in  return,  is  so  crude  a  manifestation  of  sinful  selfishness 
that  one  would  suppose  only  an  occasional  instance  of 
such  delinquency  could  be  found,  and  only  under  medical 
treatment.  But  in  fact  throughout  history  the  policy  of 
most  States  has  been  shaped  in  order  to  make  such  a 
sinful  condition  easy  and  perpetual.  Men  who  have 
been  under  the  teachings  of  Christianity  all  their  lives 


5^  ^   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

do  not  even  see  that  parasitism  is  a  sin.  So  deeply  has 
our  insight  into  sin  been  darkened  by  the  lack  of  a  re- 
ligious ideal  of  social  life,  Henry  Drummond,  who  was 
one  of  the  early  prophets  of  the  Kingdom  idea,  long  ago 
pointed  out  that  parasites  are  on  the  way  to  perdition, 
physically,  intellectually,  and  morally..  We  shall  not  be 
doing  our  thinking  in  a  Christian  way  until  we  agree 
that  productive  labour  according  to  the  ability  of  each 
is  one  of  "  the  conditions  of  salvation."  .■ 

The  accepted  definition  of  sin  as  selfishness  is  there- 
fore wholly  in  line  with  the  social  gospel,  and  the  latter 
can  back  up  the  old  theology  with  impressive  examples 
of  high-power  selfishness  which  seem  to  have  been  over- 
looked. They  can  hardly  fail  to  create  a  more  search- 
ing consciousness  of  sin  in  every  Christian  mind.  In- 
deed, many  a  Christian  man,  surveying  the  chief  am- 
bitions and  results  of  his  life  in  the  light  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  will  have  to  begin  his  repentance  over  again  and 
cry,  Mea  culpa. 

There  is  evangelistic  force  in  this  social  comprehension 
of  the  nature  of  sin.  It  offers  searching  and  unsettling 
arguments  and  appeals  to  evangelistic  preachers.  If  pop- 
ular evangelists  have  not  used  them  it  can  hardly  be  for 

^  lack  of  effectiveness.     Is  it  because  they  are  too  effective? 

/\  If  theology  absorbs  this  understanding  of  the  nature 
of  sin,  it  will  become  a  strong  intellectual  support  of  the 
social  gospel,  and  come  into  fuller  harmony  with  the 
spirit  of  the  prophets  and  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus. 
The  social  gospel  is  part  of  the  "  return  to  Christ."  '\ 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    TRANSMISSION    OF    SIN 

How  is  sin  transmitted  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion? How  is  it  made  enduring  and  universal  through- 
out the  race? 

This  is  by  no  means  an  academic  question.  Theology' 
ought  to  be  the  science  of  redemption  and  offer  scientific 
methods  for  the  eradication  of  sin.  In  dealing  with  any 
epidemic  disease,  the  first  thing  is  to  isolate  the  bacillus, 
and  the  second  to  see  how  it  propagates  and  spreads. 
We  must  inquire  for  the  lines  of  communication  and 
contagion  by  which  sin  runs  vertically  down  through 
history,  and  horizontally  through  the  strata  of  contem- 
porary society. 

Theology  has  dealt  with  this  problem  in  the  doctrine 
of  original  sin.  Many  modern  theologians  are  ready  to 
abandon  this  doctrine,  and  among  laymen  it  seems  to 
carry  so  little  sense  of  reality  that  audiences  often  smile 
at  its  mention.  I  take  pleasure,  therefore,  in  defending' 
it.  It  is  one  of  the  few  attempts  of  individualistic  the- 
ology to  get  a  solidaristic  view  of  its  field  of  work. 
This  doctrine  views  the  race  as  a  great  unity,  descended 
from  a  single  head,  and  knit  together  through  all  ages 
by  unity  of  origin  and  blood.  This  natural  unity  is  the 
57 


58-  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

basis  and  carrier  for  the  transmission  and  universality 
of  sin.  Depravity  of  will  and  corruption  of  nature  are 
transmitted  wherever  life  itself  is  transmitted. 

Science,  to  some  extent,  corroborates  the  doctrine  of 
original  sin.  Evil  does  flow  down  the  generations 
through  the  channels  of  biological  coherence.  Idiocy 
and  feeble-mindedness,  neurotic  disturbances,  weakness 
of  inhibition,  perverse  desires,  stubbornness  and  anti- 
social impulses  in  children  must  have  had  their  adequate 
biological  causes  somewhere  back  on  the  line,  even  if  we 
lack  the  records. 

Even  in  normal  individuals  the  animal  instincts  pre- 
ponderate over  the  spiritual  motives  and  restraints.  All 
who  have  to  train  the  young  find  themselves  marshalling 
.motives  and  forces  to  strengthen  the  higher  desires 
against  the  drag  of  unwillingness.  "The  spirit  is  will- 
ing, but  the  flesh  is  weak,"  is  a  formula  of  Jesus. 
Paul's  description  of  the  struggle  of  flesh  and  spirit  in 
his  life  is  a  classical  expression  of  the  tragedies  enacted 
in  the  intimate  life  of  every  one  who  has  tried  to  make  his 
recalcitrant  Ego  climb  the  steep  path  of  perfection: 
"  The  good  which  I  would  I  do  not ;  but  the  evil  which 
I  would  not,  that  I  practise." 

According  to  orthodox  theology  man's  nature  passed 
through  a  fatal  debasement  at  the  beginning  of  history. 
According  to  evolutionary  science  the  impulses  connected 
with  our  alimentary  and  reproductive  organs  run  far  back 
in  the  evolution  of  the  race  and  are  well  established  and 
imperious,  whereas  the  social,  altruistic,  and  spiritual 
impulses  are  of  recent  development  and  relatively  weak. 


THE   TRANSMISSION    OF    SIN  59 

We  can  take  our  choice  of  the  explanations.  In  either 
case  a  faulty  equipment  has  come  down  to  us  through  the 
reproductive  life  of  the  race. 

There  is,  then,  a  substance  of  truth  in  this  unpopular 
doctrine  of  original  sin.  But  the  old  theology  over- 
worked it.  It  tried  to  involve  us  in  the  guilt  of  Adam; 
as  well  as  in  his  debasement  of  nature  and  his  punish- 
ment of  death.  It  fixed  on  us  all  a  uniform  corruption, 
and  made  it  so  complete  that  all  evil  resulting  from 
personal  sins  seems  trivial  and  irrelevant.  If  our  will 
is  so  completely  depraved,  where  do  we  get  the  freedom 
on  which  alone  responsibility  can  be  based?  If  a  child 
is  by  nature  set  on  evil,  hostile  to  God,  and  a  child  of  the 
devil,  what  is  the  use  of  education?  For  education  pre- 
supposes an  appetite  for  good  which  only  needs  awaken- 
ing, direction,  and  spiritual  support. 

The  texts  usually  cited  in  support  of  the  doctrine  can 
not  justly  be  made  to  bear  such  universal  significance.^ 
The  proof-text  method,  in  trying  to  prove  our  original 
sin,  has  proved  its  own.  The  basic  passage  in  Romans 
V,  12-21,  is  so  difficult  that  even  the  exact  methods  of 
modern  exegesis  have  not  made  Paul's  meaning  sure. 
Augustine  based  his  influential  argument  on  the  Vulgate 
translation  of  verse  12,  which  is  certainly  faulty. 

Theology  was  right  in  emphasizing  the  biological 
transmission  of  evil  on  the  basis  of  race  solidarity,  but 
it  strained  the  back  of  the  doctrine  by  overloading  it. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  slighted  or  overlooked  the  fact 

1  Gen.  vi,  5  ;  viii,  21  ;  Psalms  xiv,  1-3 ;  li,  5 ;  Iviii,  3 ;  Isaiah  xlviii,  8; 
John  iii,  5-6;  Romans  v,  12-14;  Eph.  ii,  3. 


60  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE    SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

that  sin  is  transmitted  along  the  lines  of  social  tradition. 
This  channel  is  at  least  as  important  as  the  other  and  far 
more  susceptible  of  religious  influence  and  control. 
Original  sin  deals  with  dumb  forces  of  nature;  social 
tradition  is  ethical  and  may  be  affected  by  conscious 
social  action.  Only  the  lack  of  social  information  and 
orientation  in  the  past  can  explain  the  fact  that  theology 
has  made  so  little  of  this. 

The  evil  habits  of  boyhood, —  lying,  stealing,  cigarette 
smoking,  profane  and  obscene  talk,  self-pollution, —  are 
usually  set  up  in  boys  by  the  example  and  social  suasion 
of  boys  just  one  stage  older  than  they,  young  enough  to 
be  trusted  companions,  and  old  enough  to  exercise  au- 
thority.    One  generation  corrupts  the  next. 

The  permanent  vices  and  crimes  of  adults  are  not 
transmitted  by  heredity,  but  by  being  socialized;  for  in- 
stance, alcoholism'  and  all  drug  evils ;  cruel  sports,  such 
as  bull-fights  and  pugilism;  various  forms  of  sex  per- 
versity; voluntary  deformities,  such  as  foot-binding, 
corseting,  piercing  of  ears  and  nose;  blood- feuds  in 
Corsica;  lynching  in  America.  Just  as  syphilitic  cor- 
ruption is  forced  on  the  helpless  foetus  in  its  mother's 
womb,  so  /these  hereditary  social  evils  are  forced  on  the 
individual  embedded  in  the  womb  of  society  and  draw- 
ing his  ideas,  moral  standards,  and  spiritual  ideals  from 
the  general  life  of  the  social  body. 

That  sin  is  lodged  in  social  customs  and  institutions 
and  is  absorbed  by  the  individual  from  his  social  group 
is  so  plain  that  any  person  with  common  sense  can  ob- 
serve it,  but  I  have  found  only  a  few,  even  among  the 
modern  hand-books   of   theology,   which  show  a  clear 


THE   TRANSMISSION   OF    SIN  6l 

recognition  of  the  theological  importance  of  this  fact.^ 
The  social  gospel  has  from  the  first  emphasized  it,  and 
our  entire  religious  method  of  dealing  with  children, 
adolescents,  students,  industrial  and  professional  groups, 
and  neighbourhoods,  is  being  put  on  a  different  basis  in 
consequence  of  this  new  insight.  Systematic  theology 
is  not  running  even  with  practical  theology  at  this  point. 
A  theology  for  the  social  gospel  would  have  to  say  that 
original  sin  is  partly  social.  It  runs  down  the  genera- 
tions not  only  by  biological  propagation  but  also  by  social 
assimilation. 

Theologians  sometimes  dispatch  this  matter  easily  as 
"  the  force  of  evil  example."  There  is  much  more  in  it. 
We  deal  here  not  only  with  the  instinct  of  imitation,  but 
with  the  spiritual  authority  of  society  over  its  members. 

In  the  main  the  individual  takes  over  his  moral  judg-j 
ments  and  valuations  from  his  social  class,  profession,/ 
neighbourhood,  and  nation,  mailing  only  slight  personal! 
modifications  in  the  group  standards.  Only  earnest  orl 
irresponsible  persons  are  likely  to  enter  into  any  serious 

iQ.  Kirn,  "Grundriss  der  evangelischen  Dogmatik,"  p.  82: 
''Heredity  is  not  the  only  channel  through  which  sin  is  spread 
and  increased.  Defective  education,  evil  example,  and  the  direct 
incitement  to  sin  by  unjust  treatment  or  seduction,  are  of  at  least 
equal  importance.  The  sin  that  we  inherit  is  only  a  fragment  of 
the  totality  of  sin  existing  in  the  race.  We  ought  especially  to 
replace  the  theological  conception  of  hereditary  guilt  by  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  fact  that  guilt  attaches  not  only  to  the  individual,  but 
that  there  is  a  common  guilt  of  social  groups  in  widening  circles 
till  we  reach  the  guilt  of  the  whole  race  for  the  moral  conditions 
pervading  all  humanity."  See  also  Clarke,  "Outline  of  Christian 
Iheolog^',"  pp.  21&-221;  Brown,  "Christian  Theology  in  Outline" 
p.  278;  Pfleiderer,  "Grundriss  der  christlichen  Glaubens-und  Sitten- 
lehre,"  p.  122. 


62  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

opposition  or  contradiction,  and  then  often  on  a  single 
matter  only,  which  exhausts  their  power  of  opposition. 
The  deep  marks  which  such  a  struggle  with  our  group, 
especially  in  youth,  leaves  on  our  memory  shows  how 
hard  it  was  at  the  time. 

A  group  may  be  better  or  worse  than  a  given  member 
in  it.  It  may  require  more  neatness,  fortitude,  efficiency, 
and  hard  work  than  he  is  accustomed  to.  In  that  case 
the  boy  entering  a  good  shop  or  a  fine  college  fraternity 
is  very  promptly  educated  upward.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  a  group  practises  evil,  it  will  excuse  or  idealize  it, 
and  resent  any  private  judgment  which  condemns  it. 
Evil  then  becomes  part  of  the  standards  of  morality 
sanctioned  by  the  authority  of  society.  This  confuses 
the  moral  judgment  of  the  individual.  The  faculty  of 
inhibition  goes  wrong.  The  magnetic  pole  itself  shifts 
and  the  compass-needle  of  conscience  swings  to  S.E. 

Theology  has  always  been  deeply  interested  in  the 
problem  of  authority  in  religion.  The  problem  of  au- 
thority in  sin  is  of  equal  importance.  Religious  faith  in 
the  individual  would  be  weak  and  intermittent  unless  it 
could  lean  on  permanent  social  authorities.  Sin  in  the 
individual  is  shame-faced  and  cowardly  except  where 
society  backs  and  protects  it.  This  makes  a  decisive 
difference  in  the  practical  task  of  overcoming  a  given 
evil. 

The  case  of  alcoholic  intoxication  may  serve  as  an 
example.  Intoxication,  like  profanity  and  tattooing,  is 
one  of  the  universal  marks  of  barbarism.  In  civilization 
it  is  a  survival,  and  its  phenomena  become  increasingly 
intolerable  and  disgusting  to  the  scientific  and  to  the 


THE    TRANSMISSION    OF    SIN  63 

moral  mind.  Nevertheless  alcoholic  drinking  customs 
have  prevailed  and  still  prevail  throughout  civilization. 
What  has  given  the  practice  of  Injecting  a  seductive  drug 
into  the  human  organism  so  enduring  a  hold?  Other 
drug  habits,  such  as  the  opium,  cocaine,  or  heroin  habits, 
are  secretive  and  ashamed.  Why  does  the  alcohol  habit 
flourish  In  the  open?  Aside  from  the  question  of  the 
economic  forces  behind  it,  of  which  I  shall  speak  later, 
the  difference  Is  due  to  social  authority. 

In  the  wine-drinking  countries  wine  Is  praised  in 
poetry  and  song.  The  most  charming  social  usages  are 
connected  with  its  use.  It  Is  the  chief  reliance  for  enter- 
tainment and  pleasure.  Laughter  is  supposed  to  die 
without  it.  No  disgrace  Is  attached  to  mild  intoxication 
provided  a  gentleman  carries  his  drink  well  and  continues 
to  behave  politely.  Families  take  more  pride  In  their 
wine-cellars  than  In  the  tombs  of  their  ancestors. 
Young  men  are  proud  of  the  amount  of  wine  and  beer 
they  can  Imbibe  and  of  the  learning  which  they  refuse 
to  Imbibe.  Until  very  recent  years  a  total  abstainer  In 
middle  class  European  society  was  regarded  with  dis- 
quietude of  mind  and  social  impatience,  like  a  person 
advocating  force  revolution  or  political  assassination. 
He  was  a  heretic,  and  his  freedom  of  conscience  had  to 
be  won  by  very  real  sufferings. 

This  justification  and  Idealization  of  alcoholism  by 
pubHc  opinion  made  it  incomparably  harder  to  save  the 
victims,  to  prevent  the  formation  of  the  drinking  habits 
in  new  cases,  and  to  secure  legislation.  Governments 
were,  of  course,  anxious  to  suppress  the  disgusting 
drunkenness  of  the  labouring  classes,  which  Interfered 


64  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

with  their  working  efficiency,  but  the  taming  of  the  hquor 
trade  was  hard  to  secure  as  long  as  men  high  up  in 
Parliament,  the  established  Church,  and  Society  con- 
sidered investments  in  breweries,  distilleries,  and  pubhc 
houses  a  perfectly  honourable  source  of  income. 

The  rapid  progress  in  the  expulsion  of  the  liquor  trade 
in  America  would  have  been  impossible  if  the  idealization 
of  the  drinking  customs  had  not  previously  disappeared 
from  public  opinion.  The  chief  plea  of  the  brewers  now 
is  that  beer  displaces  distilled  liquor  and  promotes 
temperance.  In  "the  People's  Sunday  Evening,"  a 
popular  theatre  meeting  in  Rochester,  N.  Y.,  we  have 
for  seven  years  publicly  invited  and  challenged  the 
Brewers'  Exchange  and  all  the  liquor  trade  organizations 
to  discuss  the  social  and  moral  utility  of  moderate  drink- 
ing on  our  platform.  They  accepted  the  first  time,  but 
had  to  go  to  Buffalo  for  a  lawyer  to  make  the  speech. 
After  that  we  were  never  able  to  secure  a  response. 
The  use  of  liquor  is  still  common  in  America,  but  its 
social  authority  has  been  overcome.  So  far  as  I  can 
see,  this  was  done  by  the  churches  before  either  business 
or  science  lent  much  aid,  and  the  decisive  fact  which  set 
the  voice  of  some  of  the  denominations  free  was  their 
refusal  to  tolerate  in  their  membership  persons  financially 
interested  in  the  liquor  business,  or  to  receive  contribu- 
tions from  them. 

In  the  case  of  alcoholism  we  can  watch  a  gradual 
breaking  down  of  the  social  authority  of  a  great  evil. 
In  the  case  of  militarism  we  are  watching  the  reverse 
process.  Before  the  War  the  military  institutions  of 
our  nation  were  weak  and  public  opinion  condemned 


THE   TRANSMISSION   OF   SIN  65 

war.     Enthusiasm   for  peace   was  one  of  the  clearest 
social  convictions  of  the  Church.     This  state  of  mind 
was  one  of  the  causes  for  our  mental  reactions  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  war.     In  the  course  of  three  years  we 
have  swung  around.     At  first  preparedness  was  advocated  ; 
as  a  dire  necessity  under  the  actual  circumstances.     But  ] 
soon  other  voices  began  to  mingle  with  this.     We  were  ■ 
soft  and  flabby,  without  training  in  order  and  obedience. 
It  would  do  our  boys  and  young  men  a  world  of  good 
to  be  under  military  discipline  and  drill  for  years.     It 
would  improve  the  American  character.     Prophets   of 
war  asserted  that  war  is  essentially  noble,  the  supreme  ; 
test  of  manhood  and  of  the  worth  of  a  nation.     The  cor-  I 
responding  swing  in  the  attitude  of  the  churches  was  made  \ 
slowly  and  with  deep  reluctance  and  searching  of  heart  ] 
by  many  ministers.     But  it  was  made.     Those  who  re-  ; 
mained  faithful  to  the  religious  peace  convictions  which 
had  been  orthodox  a  short  time  ago,  were  now  extremists, 
and  the  position  of  a  public  spokesman  of  religion  became 
exceedingly  difificult  for  one  who  believed  that  war  is  in- 
herently evil  and  in  contradiction  to  Christianity.     The 
problem  of  Jesus  took  on  new  forms  and  dealt  with  his 
pacifism  and  non-resistance.     The  ejection  of  the  traders 
from  the  temple  with  a  scourge  of  small  cords,  and  the 
advice  to  the  disciples  to  sell  their  cloaks  and  buy  swords, 
took  rank  as  important  parts  of  the  gospel. 

In  these  ways  religion,  being  part  of  the  national  life, 
had  to  adjust  its  convictions  and  teachings  in  order  to  per-  - 
mit  the  idealization  of  war.     If  the  nations  emerge  into  a 
long  peace  with  disarmament,  this  war  will  be  recorded 
as  a  holy  and   redemptive  war.     If  preparedness  and 


66  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

universal  service  become  permanent  institutions  of 
American  life,  profound  changes  in  the  popular  philos- 
ophy of  hfe  and  in  religious  thought  will  follow.  Social 
institutions  always  generate  the  theories  adapted  to  them. 

I  The  idealization  of  evil  is  an  indispensable  means  for 
fits  perpetuation  and  transmission.  But  the  most  potent 
I  motive  for  its  protection  is  its  profitableness.  Ordi- 
narily sin  is  an  act  of  weakness  and  side-stepping,  fol- 
lowed by  shame  the  next  day.  But  when  it  is  the  source 
of  prolific  income,  it  is  no  longer  a  shame- faced  vaga- 
bond slinking  through  the  dark,  but  an  army  with  ban- 
ners, entrenched  and  defiant.  The  bigger  the  dividends, 
the  stiffer  the  resistance  against  anything  that  would  cut 
them  down.  When  fed  with  money,  sin  grows  wings 
and  claws. 

The  other  outlets  for  sinful  selfishness,  such  as  over- 
eating and  sexual  excess,  soon  reach  their  natural  limit 
and  end  in  nausea  and  disgust,  or  they  eliminate  the 
sinner.  Polygamy  gave  full  scope  to  the  lust  of  great 
men,  but  Solomon's  thousand  concubines  seem  to  be  the 
limit  in  history  and  story.  We  have  never  heard  of  a 
man  becoming  a  millionaire  in  the  line  of  wives. 

Property,  too,  used  to  be  limited.  Too  much  land  or 
cattle  or  clothing  became  unmanageable.  The  main 
satisfaction  of  the  rich  was  to  have  many  guests  and 
dependents,  and  to  spend  bountifully.  The  rise  of  the 
money  system  enlarged  the  limits  of  acquisition.  Money 
could  be  bred  from  money.  To-day  a  man  can  store 
millions  in  paper  evidences  of  wealth  in  a  safe  deposit 
box,  and  collect  the  income  from  it  with  a  stenographer. 


THE   TRANSMISSION    OF    SIN  6/ 

a  lawyer,  and  a  pair  of  shears.  He  can  acquire  tens  of 
millions,  hundreds  of  millions.  Imagine  the  digestive 
organs  expanding  to  the  size  of  a  Zeppelin. 

If  "  the  love  of  money  is  the  root  of  all  evil,"  and  if 
selfishness  is  the  essence  of  sin,  such  an  expansion  of  the 
range  and  storage  capacity  of  selfishness  must  neces- 
sarily mark  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  sin,  just  as  the 
invention  of  the  steam-engine  marked  a  new  era  in  the 
production  of  wealth.  Drink,  over-eating,  sexualism, 
vanity,  and  idleness  are  still  reliable  standardized  sins. 
But  the  exponent  of  gigantic  evil  on  the  upper  ranges 
of  sin,  is  the  love  of  money  and  the  love  of  power  over 
men  which  property  connotes.  This  is  the  most  difficult 
field  of  practical  redemption  and  the  most  necessitous 
chance  of  evangelism. 

The  theological  doctrine  of  original  sin  is  an  impor- 
tant effort  to  see  sin  in  its  totality  and  to  explain  its  un- 
broken transmission  and  perpetuation.  But  this  ex- 
planation of  the  facts  is  very  fragmentary,  and  theology 
has  done  considerable  harm  in  concentrating  the  atten- 
tion of  religious  minds  on  the  biological  transmission  of 
evil.  It  has  diverted  our  minds  from  the  power  of 
social  transmission,  from  the  authority  of  the  social 
group  in  justifying,  urging,  and  idealizing  wrong,  and 
from  the  decisive  influence  of  economic  profit  in  the  de- 
fense and  propagation  of  evil.  These  are  ethical  facts, 
but  they  have  the  greatest  religious  importance,  and  they 
have  just  as  much  right  to  being  discussed  in  theology 
as  the  physical  propagation  of  the  species,  or  creationism 
and    traducianism.     There   is   the   more   inducement    to 


68  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

teach  dearly  on  the  social  transmission  and  perpetuation 
of  sin  because  the  ethical  and  religious  forces  can  really 
do  something  to  check  and  prevent  the  transmission  of 
sin  along  social  channels,  whereas  the  biological  transmis- 
sion of  original  sin,  except  for  the  possible  influence  of 
eugenics,  seems  to  be  beyond  our  influence. 


A      CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    SUPER-PERSONAL    FORCES    OF    EVIL  .-^ 

Individualistic  theology  has  not  trained  the  spiritual 
intelHgence  of  Christian  men  and  women  to  recognize 
and  observe  spiritual  entities  beyond  the  individual. 
.\  Our  religious  interest  has  been  so  focused  on  the  soul 
of  the  individual  and  its  struggles  that  we  have  remained 
uneducated  as  to  the  more  complex  units  of  spiritual 
Hfe.     V. 

The  chief  exception  to  this  statement  is  our  religious 
insight  into  the  history  of  Israel  and  Judah,  into  the 
nature  of  the  family,  and  the  qualities  of  the  Church. 
The  first  of  these  we  owe  to  the  solidaristic  vision  of  the 
Old  Testament  prophets  who  saw  their  nation  as  a  gigan- 
tic personality  which  sinned,  suffered,  and  repented. 
The  second  we  owe  to  the  deep  interest  which  the  Church 
from  the  beginning  has  taken  in  the  purity  of  family 
life  and  the  Christian  nurture  of  the  young.  The  third 
we  owe  to  the  high  valuation  the  Church  has  always  put 
on  itself.  It  has  claimed  a  continuous  and  enduring  life 
of  its  own  which  enfolds  all  its  members  and  distin- 
guishes it  from  every  other  organization  and  from  the 
totality  of  the  worldly  life  outside  of  it.  It  is  hard  to 
deny  this.  Not  only  the  Church  as  a  whole,  but  dis- 
tinctive groups  and  organizations  within  the  Church, 
such  as  the  Friends  or  the  Jesuit  Order,  have  maintained 
69 


70  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

their  own  character  and  principles  tenaciously  against 
all  influences.  This  is  the  noblest  view  that  we  can  take 
of  the  Church,  that  the  spirit  of  her  Lord  has  always 
been  an  informing  principle  of  life  within  her,  and  that, 
though  faltering,  sinning,  and  defiled,  she  has  kept  her 
own  collective  personality  intact.  Paul's  discussion  of 
the  Church  as  the  body  of  Christ  (i  Cor.  xii)  is  the  first 
and  classical  discussion  in  Christian  thought  of  the  nature 
and  functioning  of  a  composite  spiritual  organism. 

The  Church  is  not  the  only  organism  of  that  kind, 
though  pre-eminent  among  them  all.  Others  are  less 
permanent,  less  distinctive,  less  attractive,  and  less  self- 
assertive,  but  the  spiritual  self -consciousness  of  the 
Church  is  built  up  on  the  social  self -consciousness  which 
it  shares  with  other  social  organisms. 

Josiah  Royce,  one  of  the  ablest  philosophical  thinkers 
our  nation  has  produced,  has  given  us,  in  his  "  Problem 
of  Christianity,"  his  mature  reflections  on  the  subject  of 
the  Christian  religion.  The  book  is  a  great  fragment, 
poorly  balanced,  confined  in  the  main  to  a  modern  dis-. 
cussion  of  three  great  Pauline  conceptions,  sin,  atone- 
ment, and  the  Church.  The  discussion  of  the  Church 
is  the  ablest  part  of  it;  I  shall  return  to  that  later.  .Fol- 
lowing the  lead  of  VVundt's  Voll^erpsychologie,  Profes- 
sor Royce  was  deeply  impressed  with  the  reality  of 
super-personal  forces  in  human  life.  He  regards  the 
comprehension  of  that  fact  as  one  of  the  most  important 
advances  in  knowledge  yet  made. 

"There  are  in  the  human  world  two  profoundly  different 
grades,  or  levels,  of  mental  beings, —  namely,  the  beings  that 
we  usually  call  human  individuals,  and  the  beings  that  we  call 


THE    SUPER-PERSONAL    FORCES    OF   EVIL  71 

communities.— Any  highly  organized  community  is  as  truly  a 
human  being  as  you  and  I  are  individually  human.  Only  a 
community  is  not  what  we  usually  call  an  individual  human 
bemg  because  it  has  no  one  separate  and  internally  well-knit 
physical  organism  of  its  own;  and  because  its  mind,  if  you 
attribute  to  it  any  one  mind,  is  therefore  not  manifested  through 
the  expressive  movements  of  such  a  single  separate  human 
organism.  Yet  there  are  reasons  for  attributing  to  a  commun- 
ity a  mmd  of  its  own.—  The  communities  are  vastly  more  com- 
plex, and,  m  many  ways,  are  also  immeasurably  more  potent 
and  enduring  than  are  the  individuals.  Their  mental  life 
possesses,  as  Wundt  has  pointed  out,  a  psychology  of  its  own 
which  can  be  systematically  studied.  Their  mental  existence 
IS  no  mere  creation  of  abstract  thinking  or  of  metaphor-  and 
is  no  more  a  topic  for  mystical  insight,  or  for  phantastic  specu- 
lation, than  is  the  mental  existence  of  an  individual  man."  1 

This  conception  is  of  great  importance  for  the  doc- 
trine of  sin.  I  have  spoken  in  the  last  chapter  about  the 
authority  of  the  group  over  the  individual  within  it,  and 
its  power  to  impose  its  own  moral  standard  on  its  mem- 
bers, by  virtue  of  which  it  educates  them  upward,  if  its 
standard  is  high,  and  debases  them,  if  it  is  low.  We 
need  only  mention  some  of  the  groups  in  our  own  na- 
tional social  life  to  realize  how  they  vary  in  moral  qual- 
ity and  how  potent  they  are  by  virtue  of  their  collective 
life:  high  school  fraternities;  any  college  community;  a 
trade  union;  the  I.  W.  W. ;  the  Socialist  party;  Tam- 
many Hall;  any  military  organization;  an  officers'  corps; 
the  police  force;  the  inside  group  of  a  local  political 
party;  the  Free  Masons;  the  Grange;  the  legal  profes- 
sio*i;  a  conspiracy  like  the  Black  Hand. 

These  super-personal  forces  count  in  the  moral  world 
not  only  through  their  authority  over  their  members,  but 
^  "  Problem  of  Christianity,"  I,  p.  164-167. 


y2  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

through  their  influence  in  the  general  social  life.  They 
front  the  world  outside  of  them.  Their  real  object 
usually  lies  outside.  The  assimilative  power  they  exert 
over  their  members  is  only  their  form  of  discipline  by 
which  they  bring  their  collective  body  into  smooth  and 
efficient  working  order.  They  are  the  most  powerful 
ethical  forces  in  our  communities. 

Evil  collective  forces  have  usually  fallen  from  a  better 
estate.  Organizations  are  rarely  formed  for  avowedly 
evil  ends.  They  drift  into  evil  under  sinister  leadership, 
or  under  the  pressure  of  need  or  temptation.  For  in- 
stance, a  small  corrupt  group  in  a  city  council,  in  order 
to  secure  control,  tempts  the  weak,  conciliates  and  serves 
good  men,  and  turns  the  council  itself  into  a  force  of 
evil  in  the  city;  an  inside  ring  in  the  police  force  grafts 
on  the  vice  trade,  and  draws  a  part  of  the  force  into 
protecting  crime  and  brow-beating  decent  citizens;  a 
trade  union  fights  for  the  right  to  organize  a  shop,  but 
resorts  to  violence  and  terrorizing;  a  trust,  desiring  to 
steady  prices  and  to  get  away  from  antiquated  compe- 
tition, undersells  the  independents  and  evades  or  pur- 
chases legislation.  This  tendency  to  deterioration  shows 
the  soundness  of  the  social  instincts,  but  also  the  ease 
with  which  they  go  astray,  and  the  need  of  righteous 
social  institutions  to  prevent  temptation. 

In  the  previous  chapter  it  was  pointed  out  that  the 
love  of  gain  is  one  of  the  most  unlimited  desires  and  tte 
most  inviting  outlet  for  sinful  selfishness.  The  po%er 
of  combination  lends  itself  to  extortion.  Predatory 
profit  or  graft,  when  once  Its  sources  are  opened  up  and 
developed,  constitutes  an  almost  overwhelming  tempta- 


THE   SUPER-PERSONAL    FORCES    OF   EVIL  73 

tion  to  combinations  of  men.  Its  pursuit  gives  them 
cohesion  and  unity  of  mind,  capacity  to  resist  common 
dangers,  and  an  outfit  of  moral  and  poHtical  principles 
which  will  justify  their  anti-social  activities.  The  ag- 
gressive and  defensive  doings  of  such  combinations  are 
written  all  over  history.  History  should  be  re-written  . 
to  explain  the  nature  of  human  parasitism.  It  would 
be  a  revelation.  The  Roman  publicani,  who  collected 
the  taxes  from  conquered  provinces  on  a  contract  basis; 
the  upper  class  in  all  slave-holding  communities;  the 
landlord  class  in  all  ages  and  countries,  such  as  East 
Prussia,  Ireland,  Italy,  and  Russia;  the  great  trading 
companies  in  the  early  history  of  commerce ;  —  these  are 
instances  of  social  groups  consolidated  by  extortionate 
gain.  Such  groups  necessarily  resist  efforts  to  gain 
political  Hberty  or  social  justice,  for  liberty  and  justice 
do  away  with  unearned  incomes.  Their  malign  in- 
fluence on  the  development  of  humanity  has  been  beyond 
telling. 

Y  The  higher  the  institution,  the  worse  it  is  when  it  \^  \/ 
goes  wrong.     The  most  disastrous  backsliding  in  history  \ 
was  the  deterioration  of  the  Church.     Long  before  the  i 
Reformation  the  condition  of  the  Church  had  become 
the  most  serious  social  question  of  the  age.X  It  weighed 
on  all  good  men.     The  Church,  which  was  founded  on 
democracy  and  brotherhood,  had,  in  its  higher  levels, 
become  an  organization  controlled  by  the  upper  classes 
for  parasitic  ends,  a  religious  duplicate  of  the  coercive 
State,  and  a  chief  check  on  the  advance  of  democracy 
and  brotherhood.     Its  duty  was  to  bring  love,  unity  and 
freedom   to   mankind;   instead   it   created   division,    fo- 


74  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

mented  hatred,  and  stifled  intellectual  and  social  liberty. 
It  is  proof  of  the  high  valuation  men  put  on  the  Church 
that  its  corruption  seems  to  have  weighed  more  heavily 
on  the  conscience  of  Christendom  than  the  correspond- 
ing corruption  of  the  State.  At  least  the  religious  Revo- 
lution antedated  the  political  Revolution  by  several 
centuries.  To-day  the  Church  is  practically  free  from 
graft  and  exploitation;  its  sins  are  mainly  sins  of  omis- 
sion; yet  the  contrast  between  the  idea  of  the  Church 
and  its  reality,  between  the  force  for  good  which  it  might 
exert  and  the  force  which  it  does  exert  in  public  life, 
produces  profounder  feelings  than  the  shortcomings  of 
the  State. 

While  these  pages  are  being  written,  our  nation  is 
arming  itself  to  invade  another  continent  for  the  purpose 
of  overthrowing  the  German  government,  on  the  ground 
that  the  existence  of  autocratic  governments  is  a  menace 
to  the  peace  of  the  world  and  the  freedom  of  its  peoples. 
This  momentous  declaration  of  President  Wilson  recog- 
nizes the  fact  that  the  Governments  of  Great  States  too 
may  be  super-personal  powers  of  sin;  that  they  may  in 
reality  be  only  groups  of  men  using  their  fellow-men  as 
pawns'  and  tools ;  that  such  governments  have  in  the  past 
waged  war  for  dynastic  and  class  interests  without  con- 
sulting the  people ;  and  that  in  their  diplomacy  they  have 
cunningly  contrived  plans  of  deception  and  aggression, 
working  them  out  through  generations  behind  the 
guarded  confidences  of  a  narrow  and  privileged  class.^ 

1  These  ideas  and  phrases  are  drawn  from  the  President's  Ad- 
dress to  Congress  on  April  2nd,  1917. 


THE   SUPER-PERSONAL    FORCES    OF    EVIL  75 

There  is  no  doubt  that  these  charges  justly  character- 
ize the  German  government.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
they  characterize  all  governments  of  past  history  with 
few  exceptions,  and  that  even  the  democratic  govern- 
ments of  to-day  are  not  able  to  show  clean  hands  on 
these  points.  The  governments  even  of  free  States  like 
the  Dutch  Republic,  the  city  republics  of  Italy,  and  the 
British  Empire  have  been  based  on  a  relatively  narrow 
group  who  determined  the  real  policies  and  decisions  of 
the  nation.  How  often  have  we  been  told  that  in  our 
own  country  we  have  one  government  on  paper  and 
another  in  fact?  Genuine  political  democracy  will  evi- 
dence  its  existence  by  the  social,  economic,  and  educa- 
tional condition  of  the  people.  Generally  speaking,  city 
slums,  a  spiritless  and  drunken  peasantry,  and  a  large 
emigration  are  corollaries  of  class  government.  If  the 
people  were  free,  they  would  stop  exploitation.  If  they 
can  not  stop  exploitation,  the  parasitic  interests  are  pre- 
sumably in  control  of  legislation,  the  courts,  and  the 
powers  of  coercion.  Parasitic  government  is  sin  on  a 
high  scale.  If  this  war  leads  to  the  downfall  or  regen-  ^ 
eration  of  all  governments  which  support  the  exploita-  ( 
tion  of  the  masses  by  powerful  groups,  it  will  be  worth  • 
its  cost. 

.-•     The  social  gospel  realizes  the  importance  and  power 
of  the  super-personal  forces  in  the  community.     It  has  ; 
succeeded  in  awakening  the  social  conscience  of  the  na- 
tion to  the  danger  of  allowing  such  forces  to  become 

'parasitic  and  oppressive.;.' A  realization  of  the  spiritual 
power  and  value  of  these  composite  personalities  must 
get  into  theology,  otherwise  theology  will  not  deal  ade- 


\ 


y6  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

quately  with  the  problem  of  sin  and  of  redemption,  and 
will  be  unrelated  to  some  of  the  most  important  work 
of  salvation  which  the  coming  generations  will  ha^^e 
to  do.  —' 


A''      CHAPTER  IX 

THE    KINGDOM    OF    EVIL      /(" 

This  chapter  will  be  the  last  step  in  our  discussion 
of  the  doctrine  of  sin.  )^^  We  have  sought  to  show  that  in 
the  following  points'  a  modification  or  expansion  is 
needed  in  order  to  give  tlie  social  gospel  an  intellectual 
basis  and  a  full  medium  of  expression  in  theology,  y 
■  I.  Theological  teaching  on  the  first  origin  of  sin_ought 
not  to  obscure  the  active  sources  of  sin  in  later  genera- 
tions and  in  present-day  life,  by  which  sin  is  quickened 
and  increased.  \  An  approximation  to  the  reticence  of 
Jesus  and  the  prophets  about  the  fall  of  man,  and  to 
their  strong  emphasis  on  the  realistic  facts  of  contem- 
porary sin,  would  increase  the  practical  efficiency  of 
theology. 

2.  Since  an  active  sense  of  failure  and  sin  is  produced 
by  contrast  with  the  corresponding  ideal  of  righteous- 
ness, theology,  by  obscuring  and  forgetting  the  Kingdom 
of  God  has  kept  the  Christian  world  out  of  a  full  reali-^,' 
zation  of  the  social  sins  which  frustrate  the  Kingdom.-V- 
The  social  gospel  needs  above  all  a  restoration  of  re- 
ligious faith  in  the  Reign  of  God  in  order  to  create  an 
adequate  sense  of  guilt  for  public  sins,  and  it  must  look 
to  theology  to  furnish  the  doctrinal  basis  of  it. 
:    3.  The  doctrine  of  original  sin  has  directed  attention 
to  the  biological  channels  for  the  transmission  of  general 
sinfulness  from  generation  to  generation,  but  has  neg- 


yS>  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

lected  and  diverted  attention  from  the  transmission  and 
perpetuation  of  specific  evils  through  the  channels  of 
social  tradition.  )\ 

A  4-  Theology  has  not  given  adequate  attention  to  the 
social    idealizations   of    evil,    v^hich    falsify   the   ethical 
standards  for  the  individual  by  the  authority  of  his  group 
or  community,  deaden  the  voice  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to 
the  conscience  of  individuals  and  communities,  and  per- 
petuate   antiquated    wrongs    in    society.  X' These    social 
■.idealizations  are  the  real  heretical  doctrines   from  the 
^  point  of  viev^  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
X    5-  Nevi^  spiritual   factors   of  the  highest  significance 
-    are  disclosed  by  the   realization  of  the  super-personal 
forces,    or    composite   personaHties,    in   society. /\When 
these  backslide  and  become  combinations  for  evil,  they 
add   enormously  to   the  power  of   sin.     Theology  has 
.utilized  the   terminology   and   results   of  psychology   to 
interpret    the    sin     and     regeneration     of     individuals. 
Would  it  stray  from  its  field  if  it  utilized  sociological 
terms  and  results  in  order  to  interpret  the  sin  and  re- 
demption of  these  super-personal  entities  in  human  life? 

The  solidaristic  spiritual  conceptions  which  have  been 
discussed  must  all  be  kept  in  mind  and  seen  together,  in 
order  to  realize  the  power  and  scope  of  the  doctrine  to 
which  they  converge :  the  Kingdom  of  Evil. 

In  some  of  our  swampy  forests  the  growth  of  ages 
has  produced  impenetrable  thickets  of  trees  and  under- 
growth, woven  together  by  creepers,  and  inhabited  by 
things  that  creep  or  fly.  Every  season  sends  forth  new 
growth  under  the  urge  of  life,  but  always  developing 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    EVIL  79 

ferom  the  old  growth  and  its  seeds,  and  still  perpetuat- 
ing the  same  rank  mass  of  life. 

The  life  of  humanity  is  infinitely  interwoven,  always 
renewing  itself,  yet  always  perpetuating  what  has  been. 
The  evils  of  one  generation  are  caused  by  the  wrongs 
of  the  generations  that  preceded,  and  will  in  turn  con- 
dition the  sufferings  and  temptations  of  those  who  come 
after.  Our  Italian  immigrants  are  what  they  are  be- 
cause the  Church  and  the  land  system  of  Italy  have  made 
them  so.  The  Mexican  peon  is  ridden  by  the  Spanish 
past.  Capitalistic  Europe  has  fastened  its  yoke  on  the 
neck  of  Africa.  When  negroes  are  hunted  from  a 
Northern  city  like  beasts,  or  when  a  Southern  city  de- 
grades the  whole  nation  by  turning  the  savage  inhuman- 
ity of  a  mob  into  a  public  festivity,  we  are  continuing 
to  sin  because  our  fathers  created  the  conditions  of  sin 
by  the  African  slave  trade  and  by  the  unearned  wealth 
they  gathered  from  slave  labour  for  generations. 

Stupid  dynasties  go  on  reigning  by  right  of  the  long 
time  they  have  reigned.  The  laws  of  the  ancient 
Roman  despotism  were  foisted  by  ambitious  lawyers  on 
mediaeval  communities,  to  which  they  were  in  no  wise 
fitted,  and  once  more  strangled  liberty,  and  dragged 
free  farmers  into  serfdom.  When  once  the  common 
land  of  a  nation,  and  its  mines  and  waters,  have  become 
the  private  property  of  a  privileged  band,  nothing  short 
of  a  social  earthquake  can  pry  them  from  their  right 
of  collecting  private  taxes.  Superstitions  which  origi- 
nated in  the  third  century  are  still  faithfully  cultivated 
by  great  churches,  compressing  the  minds  of  the  young 
with  fear  and  cherished  by  the  old  as  their  most  precious 


So  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

faith.  Ideas  struck  out  by  a  wrestling  mind  in  the  heat 
of  an  argument  are  erected  by  later  times  into  proof- 
texts  more  decisive  than  masses  of  living  facts.  One 
nation  arms  because  it  fears  another;  the  other  arms 
more  because  this  armament  alarms  it;  each  subsidizes 
a  third  and  a  fourth  to  aid  it.  Two  fight;  all  fight; 
none  knows  how  to  stop;  a  planet  is  stained  red  in  a 
solidarity  of  hate  and  horror. 

The  entomologist  Fabre  investigated  the  army  cater- 
pillar, which  marches  in  dense  thousands,  apparently 
under  some  leadership  which  all  obey.  But  Fabre  found 
there  is  no  leadership.  Each  simply  keeps  in  touch  with 
the  caterpillar  just  ahead  of  it  and  follows,  follows  on. 
The  one  article  of  faith  is  to  follow  the  leaders,  though 
none  of  the  leaders  knows  whither  they  are  going.  The 
experimenter  led  the  column  to  march  in  a  circle  by  get- 
ting the  front  rank  in  touch  with  the  rear,  and  now  they 
milled  around  helplessly  like  lost  souls  in  Dante's  hell. 

If  this  were  the  condition  of  humanity,  we  should 
be  in  a  state  of  relative  innocency  and  bliss.  The  front- 
rank  caterpillars  are  at  least  not  trying  to  make  some- 
thing out  of  the  rest,  and  are  not  leading  them  to  their 
destruction  by  assuring  them  that  they  are  doing  it  for 
their  good  and  for  the  highest  spiritual  possessions  of 
the  caterpillar  race.  Human  society  has  leaders  who 
know  what  they  want,  but  many  of  them  have  manipu- 
lated the  fate  of  thousands  for  their  selfish  ends.  The 
sheep-tick  hides  in  the  wool  of  the  sheep  and  taps  the 
blood  where  it  flows  warm  and  rich.  But  the  tick  has 
no  power  to  alter  the  arterial  system  of  the  sheep  and  to 
bring  the  aorta  close  to  the  skin  where  it  can  get  at  it. 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    EVIL  8l 

Human  ticks  have  been  able  to  do  this.  They  have 
gained  control  of  legislation,  courts,  police,  military, 
royalty,  church,  property,  religion,  and  have  altered  the 
constitution  of  nations  in  order  to  make  things  easy  for 
the  tick  class.  The  laws,  institutions,  doctrines,  litera- 
ture, art,  and  manners  which  these  ruling  classes  have 
secreted  have  been  social  means  of  infection  which  have 
bred  new  evils  for  generations. 

Any  reader  who  doubts  these  sad  statements  can  find 
the  facts  in  the  books,  though  mostly  in  foot-notes  in 
fine  print.  It  is  also  going  on  in  real  life.  We  can 
watch  it  if  we  look  at  any  nation  except  our  own. 
\  This  is  what  the  modern  social  gospel  would  call  the 
Kingdom  of  Evil,  Our  theological  conception  of  sin  is 
but  fragmentary  unless  we  see  all  men  in  their  natural 
groups  bound  together  in  a  solidarity  of  all  times  and  all 
places,  bearing  the  yoke  of  evil  and  suffering.  .^^This  is 
the  explanation  of  the  amazing  regularity  of  social 
statistics.  A  nation  registers  so  and  so  many  suicides, 
criminal  assaults,  bankruptcies,  and  divorces  per  100,000 
of  the  population.  If  the  proportion  changes  seriously, 
we  search  for  the  disturbing  social  causes,  just  as  we 
search  for  the  physical  causes  if  the  rhythm  of  our 
pulse-beat  runs  away  from  the  normal.  The  statistics 
of  social  morality  are  the  pulse-beat  of  the  social  organ- 
ism. The  apparently  free  and  unrelated  acts  of  indi- 
viduals are  also  the  acts  of  the  social  group.  When  the 
social  group  is  evil,  evil  is  over  all. 

The  conception  of  a  Kingdom  of  Evil  is  not  a  new 
idea.     It  is  as  old  as  the  Christian  Church  and  older. 


82  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

But  while  our  modern  conception  is  naturally  historical 
and  social,  the  ancient  and  mediaeval  Church  believed  in 
a  Kingdom  of  evil  spirits,  with  Satan  at  their  head, 
which  is  the  governing  power  in  the  present  world  and 
the  source  of  all  temptation. 

The  belief  in  evil  spirits  is  so  common  in  ethnic  re- 
ligions that  the  relative  absence  of  that  belief  in  the  Old 
Testament  is  proper  cause  for  wonder.  There  are  only 
a  few  passages  referring  to  evil  spirits,  and  a  few  re- 
ferring to  a  spiritual  being  called  Satan.  It  is  altogether 
likely  that  the  belief  in  dangerous  and  malicious  spirits 
held  a  much  larger  place  in  the  popular  religious  life  of 
the  Jewish  people  than  we  would  gather  from  their 
literature.  If  the  higher  religious  minds,  who  wrote  the 
biblical  books,  purposely  kept  the  popular  beliefs  down 
and  out  of  sight,  that  gives  remarkable  support  to  those 
who  regard  the  belief  in  personal  evil  spirits  as  a  seamy 
and  dangerous  element  of  religion. 

After  the  Exile  the  religion  of  the  Jew^s  was  filled 
with  angels  and  devils,  each  side  built  up  in  a  great 
hierarchy,  rank  above  rank.  Evidently  this  systema- 
tized and  theological  belief  in  a  satanic  kingdom  was 
absorbed  from  the  Eastern  religions  with  which  the  Jews 
came  into  close  contact  during  the  Exile.  The  mono- 
theism of  the  Hebrew  faith  held  its  own  against  the 
dualism  of  the  East,  but  the  belief  in  Satan  is  a  modified 
dualism  compatible  with  the  reign  of  Jehovah.  The 
apocalyptic  system  is  a  theology  built  up  on  this  semi- 
dualistic  conception,  describing  the  conflict  of  the  King- 
dom of  Satan  against  God  and  his  angels  and  his  holy 
nation,  and  the  final  triumph  of  God. 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    EVIL  83 

The  belief  in  the  Satanic  Kingdom  and  the  apocalyptic 
theology  were  transferred  from  Judaism  to  Christianity 
as  part  of  the  initial  inheritance  of  the  new  religion 
from  the  old,  and  any  one  familiar  with  patristic  litera- 
ture and  with  popular  mediaeval  religion  needs  no  re- 
minder that  this  was  one  of  the  most  active  and  effective 
parts  of  the  religious  consciousness.  The  original  belief 
was  reinforced  by  the  fact  that  all  the  gods  and  the 
daimonia  of  the  Grseco-Roman  world  were  dyed  black 
and  classified  as  devils  and  evil  spirits  by  the  aggressive 
hostility  of  the  Church.  This  process  was  repeated 
when  the  mediaeval  Church  was  exorcising  the  pagan 
gods  from  the  minds  and  customs  of  the  Teutonic  na- 
tions. All  these  gods  remained  realities,  but  black 
realities. 

Popular  superstition,  systematized  and  reinforced  by 
theolog\',  and  inculcated  by  all  the  teaching  authority 
of  the  mediaeval  Church,  built  up  an  overwhelming  im- 
pression of  the  power  of  evil.  The  Christian  spirit  was 
thrown  into  an  attitude  of  defence  only.  The  best  that 
could  be  done  was  to  hold  the  powers  of  darkness  at 
bay  by  the  sign  of  the  cross,  by  holy  water,  by  sacred 
amulets,  by  prayer,  by  naming  holy  names.  The  church 
buildings  and  church  yards  were  places  of  refuge  from 
which  the  evil  spirits  were  banned.  The  gargoyles  of 
Gothic  architecture  are  the  evil  spirits  escaping  from  the 
church  buildings  because  the  spiritual  power  within  is 
unbearable  to  them.  I  recently  witnessed  a  corner-stone 
laying  at  a  new  Catholic  church.  The  bishop  and  the 
clergy  thrice  moved  in  procession  around  the  founda- 
tion walls,  chanting;  an  acolyte  carried  a  pailful  of  holy 


84  A    THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

water,  and  the  bishop  liberally  applied  it  to  the  walls. 
So  the  rectangle  of  masonry  became  an  exempt  and  dis- 
infected area  of  safety.  Under  the  sunshine  of  an 
American  afternoon,  and  with  a  crowd  of  modern  folks 
around,  it  was  an  interesting  survival. 

The  belief  in  a  demonic  Kingdom  was  in  no  wise  at- 
tacked in  the  Reformation.  Luther's  sturdy  belief  in 
devils  is  well  known.  Indeed,  the  belief  which  had 
been  built  up  for  centuries  by  the  Church,  came  to  its 
terrible  climax  during  the  age  of  the  Reformation  in  the 
witch  trials.  From  a.  d.  1400  to  1700,  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  women  and  girls  were  imprisoned,  tor- 
tured, and  burned.  These  witch  trials  were  grounded 
on  the  belief  in  the  satanic  kingdom.  Thomas  Aquinas 
furnished  the  theological  basis;  the  Inquisition  reduced 
it  to  practice;  Innocent  VIII  in  1484  in  the  bull  Sum- 
mis  desidcrantes  lent  it  the  highest  authority  of  the 
Church;  the  Malleus  Malcficarum  (1487  or  1488)  codi- 
fied it;  lawyers,  judges,  informers,  and  executioners  ex- 
ploited it  for  gain;  information  given  by  malice,  fear, 
or  the  shrieks  of  the  tortured  made  the  contagion  self- 
perpetuating  and  ever  spreading.  It  prevailed  in 
Protestant  countries  equally  with  Catholic.  To  believe 
in  the  machinations  of  evil  spirits  and  their  compact 
with  witches  was  part  of  orthodoxy,  part  of  profounder 
piety.  If  the  devil  and  his  spirits  are  not  real  but  a 
figment  of  social  imagination,  yet  at  that  time  the  devil 
was  real,  just  as  real  as  any  flesh  and  blood  being  and 
v\.far  more  efficient.  Tlieology  had  made  him  real,  The 
Reformation  theology  did  not  end  this  craze  of  horror. 
Aside  from  the  humane  religious  spirit  of  a  few  who 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    EVIL  85 

wrote  against  it,  it  was  the  blessed  scepticism  of  the 
age  of  EnHghtenment  and  the  dawn  of  modern  science 
which  saved  humanity  from  the  furies  of  a  theology 
Vi^hich  had  gone  wrong. 

The  passive  and  defensive  attitude  toward  the  satanic 
Kingdom  of  Evil  still  continues  wherever  the  belief  in 
evil  spirits  and  in  the  apocalyptic  theology  is  active, 
Bunyan's  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  presents  a  dramatic  rec- 
ord of  the  Calvinistic  religious  consciousness  in  its  prime. 
In  all  the  wonderful  adventures  and  redoubtable  combats 
of  Christian  and  his  companions  and  heavenly  aids,  they 
are  on  the  (jefen^.  The  only  exception  that  I  can  re- 
member occurs  in  the  second  part,  when  Christian's 
wife  and  children,  personally  conducted  by  Great-Heart, 
pass  by  Doubting  Castlg  where  Christian  and  Hopeful 
were  imprisoned  by  Giant  Despair. 

"  So  they  sat  down  and  consulted  what  was  best  to  be  done : 
to  wit,  now  they  were  so  strong,  and  had  got  such  a  man  as 
Mr.  Great-Heart  for  their  conductor,  whether  they  had  not  best 
to  make  an  attempt  upon  the  giant,  demolish  his  castle,  and 
if  there  were  any  pilgrims  in  it,  to  set  them  at  liberty,  before 
they  went  any  further.  So  one  said  one  thing,  and  another 
said  the  contrary.  One  questioned  if  it  was  lawful  to  go  upon 
unconsecrated  ground ;  another  said  they  might,  provided  their 
end  was  good ;  but  Mr.  Great-Heart  said,  "  Though  that  asser- 
tion offered  last  cannot  be  universally  true,  yet  I  have  a  com- 
mandment to  resist  sin,  to  overcome  evil,  to  fight  the  good  fight 
of  faith;  and  pray,  with  whom  should  I  fight  this  good  fight,  if 
not  with  Giant  Despair?  I  will  therefore  attempt  the  taking 
away  of  his  life  and  the  demolishing  of  Doubting  Castle." 

So  they  passed  from  the  defensive  to  the  offensive  at- 
titude and  demolished  the  castle.  The  serious  delibera- 
tions  of  the  party  show  that  Bunvan  realized  that  this 


86  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE   SOCIAL    GOSPEL 

was  a  new  departure.  He  was,  in  fact  at  that  moment 
parting  company  with  the  traditional  attitude  of  the- 
ology and  religion,  and  putting  one  foot  hestitatingly 
into  the  social  gospel  and  the  preventive  methods  of 
modern  science.  Note  that  it  was  Mr.  Great-Heart  who 
made  the  move. 
)('  To-day  the  belief  in  a  satanic  kingdom  exists  only 
where  religious  and  theological  tradition  keeps  it  alive. 
It  is  not  spontaneous,  and  it  would  not  originate  anew. 
Its  lack  of  vitaHty  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  even  those 
who  accept  the  existence  of  a  personal  Satan  without 
question,  are  not  influenced  in  their  daily  life  by  the 
practical  belief  in  evil  spirits.  )(The  demons  have  faded 
away  into  poetical  unreality.  '  Satan  alone  remains,  but 
S\he  has  become  a  literary  and  theological  devil,  and  most 
\  often  a  figure  of  speech.  ^^Js^-aJiisaLagkaJUoeee^sit^ 
rather  than  a  religious  reality.  He  is  needed  to  explain 
t'he~fall~andlhelemptation,  and  he  re-appears  in  eschat- 
ology.  But  our  most  orthodox  theology  on  this  point 
would  have  seemed  cold  and  sceptical  to  any  of  the 
great  theologians  of  the  past. 

No  positive  proof  can  be  furnished  that  our  universe 
contains  no  such  spiritual  beings  as  Satan  and  his  angels. 
Impressive  arguments  have  been  made  for  their  exis- 
tence. The  problem  of  evil  is  simplified  if  all  is  re- 
duced to  this  source.  But  the  fact  confronts  us, —  and 
I  think  it  can  not  be  denied, —  that  Satan  and  his  angels 
are  a  fading  religious  entity,  and  that  a  vital  belief  in 
demon  powers  is  not  forthcoming  in  modern  life. 
•  In  that  case  we  can  no  longer  realize  the  Kingdom  of 
Evil  as  a  demonic  kingdom.     The  live  realization  of  this 


THE    KINGDOM    OF   EVIL  87 

belief  will  be  confined  to  narrow  circles,  mostly  of  pre- 
millennialists ;  the  Church  would  have  to  use  up  its 
precious  moral  authority  in  persuading  its  members  to 
hold  fast  a  belief  which  all  modern  life  bids  them  drop. 
Yet  we  ought  to  get  a  solidaristic  and  organic  concep- 
tion of  the  power  and  reality  of  evil  in  the  world.  If 
we  miss  that,  we  shall  see  only  disjointed  facts.,.|;The 
social  gospel  is  the  only  influence  which  can  renew  the 
idea  of  the  Kingdom  of  Evil  in  modern  minds,  because 
it  alone  has  an  adequate  sense  of  solidarity  and  a  suffi- 
cient grasp  of  the  historical  and  social  realities  of  sin. 
In  this  modern  form  the  conception  would  offer  re- 
ligious values  similar  to  those  of  the  old  idea,  but  would 
not  make  such  drafts  on  our  credulity,  and  would  not 
invite  such  unchristian  superstitions  and  phantasms  of 
fear. 

The  ancient  demonic  conception  and  the  modern  social 
conviction  may  seem  at  first  sight  to  be  quite  alien  to 
each  other.     In  fact,  however,  they  are  blood-kin. 

The  belief  in  a  Satanic  kingdom,  in  so  far  as  it  was 
not  merely  theology  but  vital  religious  faith,  has  always 
drawn  its  vitality  from  political  and  social  realities. 
The  conception  of  an  empire  of  evil  fastened  on  Jewish 
thought  after  the  Jews  had  an  opportunity  during  the  Ex- 
ile to  observe  imperialism  at  close  range  and  to  be  help- 
less under  its  power.  The  splendor  of  an  Oriental  court 
and  its  court  language  deeply  influenced  the  Jewish  con- 
ception of  God.  He  was  surrounded  with  a  heavenly 
retinue,  and  despotic  ideas  and  phraseology  were  ap- 
plied.    The  same  social   experiences  also   enlarged  the 


o8  A   THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCDVL   GOSPEL 

conception  of  the  reign  of  evil.  The  httle  evil  spirits 
had  been  enough  to  explain  the  evil  of  local  Jewish 
communities.  But  a  great  malign  power  was  needed  as 
the  religious  backing  of  the  oppressive  international 
forces  in  whose  talons  the  Jewish  race  was  writhing. 
Satan  first  got  his  vitality  as  an  international  political 
concept. 

The  political  significance  of  the  belief  in  the  Satanic 
kingdom  becomes  quite  clear  in  the  relation  of  the  early 
Church  to  the  Roman  Empire.  The  Apocalypse  of 
John  is  most  enlightening  on  this  fact.  The  Empire  is 
plainly  described  as  the  creature  and  agent  of  the  Satanic 
powers.  The  Beast  with  the  seven  heads  had  received 
its  dominion  from  the  great  Dragon.  The  great  city, 
which  is  described  as  the  commercial  and  financial 
centre  of  the  world,  falls  with  a  crash  when  Satan  and 
his  host  are  overthrown  by  the  Messiah.  Evidently  the 
political  system  of  Rome  and  the  demonic  powders  are 
seen  as  the  physical  and  spiritual  side  of  the  same  evil 
powxr. 

Early  Christianity  is  usually  described  as  opposed  to 
paganism,  and  we  think  of  the  pagan  religion  as  a  rival 
religious  system.  But  it  was  also  a  great  social  force 
penetrating  all  community  life,  the  symbol  of  social  co- 
herence and  loyalty.  Its  social  usages  let  no  one  alone. 
It  became  coercive  and  threatening  where  religious  ac- 
tions had  political  significance,  especially  in  the  worship 
of  the  emperor.  Christians  believed  the  pagan  gods  to  be 
in  reality  demon  powers,  who  had  blinded  and  enticed 
men  to  worship  them.  Whoever  did  worship  them  came 
under  their  defiling  power.     Idolatry  was  an  unforgiv- 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    EVIL  89 

able  sin.  All  the  life  of  the  Church  aimed  to  ner\-e 
Christians  to  suffer  anything  rather  than  come  under 
the  control  of  the  dark  powers  again  from  which  bap- 
tism had  saved  them.  When  the  choice  confronted  them 
and  they  were  pinned  to  the  wall,  the  hand  that  gripped, 
them  was  the  hand  of  the  Roman  Empire,  but  the  face 
that  leered  at  them  was  the  face  of  the  adversary  of 
God.  So  the  belief  in  a  Satanic  kingdom  of  evil  drew 
its  concrete  meaning  and  vitality  from  social  and  politi- 
cal realities.     It  was  their  religious  interpretation.^ 

In  the  Middle  Ages,  when  the  Roman  Empire  had 
become  a  great  memory,  the  Papacy  was  the  great  in- 
ternational power,  rich,  haughty,  luxurious,  domineer- 
ing, commanding  the  police  powers  of  States  for  its 
coercive  purposes,  and  claiming  the  heritage  of  the  em- 
perors. The  democratic  movements  which  sprang  up 
during  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries  and  headed 
toward  a  freer  religion  and  a  more  fraternal  social  life, 
found  the  papacy  against  therh.  Then  the  Apocalypse 
took  on  new  life.  The  city  on  the  seven  hills,  drunk 
with  the  blood  of  the  saints,  and  clad  in  scarlet,  was 
still  there.  The  followers  of  Jesus  who  suffered  in  the 
grip  of  the  international  hierarchy  did  not  see  this 
power  as  a  Christian  Church  using  oppressive  measures, 
but  as  an  anti-christian  power,  the  tool  of  Satan  and 
the  adversary  of  God.  This  belief  was  inherited  by 
Protestantism  and  was  one  of  its  fighting  weapons. 
Once  more  it  was  a  political  and  social  reality  which 
put  heat  and  vitality  into  the  belief  in  the  reign  of  Satan. 

To-day  there  is  no  such  world-wide  power  of  op- 
pression as  the  Roman  Empire  or  the  mediaeval  papacy. 


90  A    THEOLOGY   FOR    THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

The  popular  superstitious  beliefs  in  demonic  agencies 
have  largely  been  drained  off  by  education.  The  con- 
ception of  Satan  has  paled.  He  has  become  a  theo- 
logical devil,  and  that  is  an  attenuated  and  precarious 
mode  of  existence.  At  the  same  time  belief  in  original 
sin  is  also  waning.  These  two  doctrines  combined, — 
the  hereditary  racial  unity  of  sin,  and  the  supernatural 
power  of  evil  behind  all  sinful  human  action, —  created 
a  soHdaristic  consciousness  of  sin  and  evil,  which  I  think 
.  is  necessary  for  the  religious  mind.  Take  away  these 
two  doctrines,  and  both  our  sense  of  sin  and  our  sense 
of  the  need  of  redemption  will  become  much  more 
superficial  and  will  be  mainly  concerned  with  the  tran- 
sient acts  and  vices  of  individuals. 

/^  A  social  conception  of  the  Kingdom  of  Evil,  such  as 
I  have  tried  to  sketch,  makes  a  powerful  appeal  to  our 
growing  sense  of  racial  unity.  It  is  modern  and  grows 
spontaneously  out  of  our  livest  interests  and  ideas.  In- 
stead of  appealing  to  conservatives,  who  are  fond  of 
sitting  on  antique  furniture,  it  would  appeal  to  the  radi- 
cals. It  would  contain  the  political  and  social  protest 
against  oppression  and  illusion  for  which  the  belief  in 
a  Satanic  kingdom  stood  in  the  times  of  its  greatest 
vitality.  The  practical  insight  into  the  solidarity  of  all 
nations  in  their  sin  would  emphasize  the  obligation  to 
share  with  them  all  every  element  of  salvation  we  possess, 
and  thus  strengthen  the  appeal  for  missionary  and  edu- 
cational efforts,    y 

The  doctrine  of  original  sin  was  meant  to  bring  us  all 
under   the   sense   of  guilt.     Theology  in  the  past  has 


THE    KINGDOM    OF   EVIL  9I 

labored  to  show  that  we  are  in  some  sense  partakers  of 
Adam's  guilt.  But  the  conscience  of  mankind  has 
never  been  convinced.  Partakers  in  his  wretchedness 
we  might  well  be  by  our  family  coherence,  but  guilt  be- 
longs only  to  personality,  and  requires  will  and  freedom. 
■  On  the  other  hand  an  enlightened  conscience  can  not  help 
feeling  a  growing  sense  of  responsibility  and  guilt  for 
the  common  sins  under  which  humanity  is  bound  and 
to  which  we  all  contribute.  Who  of  us  can  say  that 
he  has  never  by  word  or  look  contributed  to  the  atmos- 
pheric pressure  of  lubricious  sex  stimulation  which  bears 
down  on  young  and  old,  and  the  effect  of  which  after 
the  war  no  man  can  predict  without  sickening?  Whose 
hand  has  never  been  stained  with  income  for  which  no 
equivalent  had  been  given  in  service?  How  many  busi- 
ness men  have  promoted  the  advance  of  democracy  in 
their  own  industrial  kingdom  when  autocracy  seemed 
safer  and  more  efficient?  What  nation  has  never  been 
drunk  with  a  sense  of  its  glory  and  importance,  and 
which  has  never  seized  colonial  possessions  or  developed 
its  little  imperialism  when  the  temptation  came  its  way? 
The  sin  of  all  is  in  each  of  us,  and  every  one  of  us  has 
scattered  seeds  of  evil,  the  final  multiplied  harvest  of 
which  no  man  knows. 

At  the  close  of  his  great  invective  against  the  religious 
leaders  of  his  nation  (Matth.  xxiii).  Jesus  has  a  solidarls- 
tic  vision  of  the  spiritual  unity  of  the  generations.  He 
warns  his  contemporaries  that  by  doing  over  again  the 
acts  of  their  forefathers,  they  will  bring  upon  them  not 
only  the  blood  they  shed  themselves,  but  the  righteous 
blood  shed  long  before.     By  solidarity  of  action   and 


92  A    THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCL\L   GOSPEL 

Spirit  we  enter  into  solidarity  of  guilt.  This  applies  to 
our  spiritual  unity  with  our  contemporaries.  If  in  the 
most  restricted  sphere  of  life  we  act  on  the  same  sinful 
principles  of  greed  and  tyranny  on  which  the  great  ex- 
ploiters and  despots  act,  we  share  their  guilt.  If  we 
consent  to  the  working  principles  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Evil,  and  do  not  counteract  it  with  all  our  strength, 
but  perhaps  even  fail  to  see  its  ruinous  evil,  then  we 
are  part  of  it  and  the  salvation  of  Christ  has  not  yet 
set  us  free. 

I  should  like  to  quote,  in  closing  this  discussion,  a 
remarkable  passage  from  Schleiermacher's  systematic 
theology,  which  describes  the  Kingdom  of  Evil  without 
calling  it  by  that  name.  I  need  not  say  that  Schleier- 
macher  was  one  of  the  really  creative  minds  in  the  his- 
tory of  Protestant  theology,  a  man  who  set  new  prob- 
lems and  made  old  problems  profounder,  thus  fertiliz- 
ing the  thoughts  even  of  those  who  know  nothing  of 
him.  Speaking  of  the  universal  racial  sin  of  humanity 
he_said : 

j  "  If,  now,  this  sinfulness  which  precedes  all  acts  of 
sin,  IS  produced  in  every  individual  through  the  sinful 
acts  and  condition  of  others;, and  if  on  the  other  hand 
every  man  by  his  own  free  actions  propagates  and 
strengthens  it  in  others;  then  it  is  som.ething  wholly 
common  to  us  (gemeinschaftlich).  Whether  we  view 
this  sinfulness  as  guilt  and  as  conscious  action,  or  as  a 
principle  and  condition  of  life,  in  either  aspect  it  is 
something  wholly  common,  not  pertaining  to  every  in- 
dividual separately  or  referring  to  him  alone,  but  in  each 


THE    KINGDOM    OF   EVIL  93 

the  work  of  all,  and  in  all  the  work  of  each.  In  fact  we 
can  understand  it  justly  and  completely  only  in  this 
solidarity /n  For  that  reason  the  doctrines  dealing  with 
it  are  never  to  be  taken  as  expressions  of  individual  self- 
consclousness,  but  they  are  expressions  of  the  common 
consciousness.  This  solidarity  is  a  unity  of  all  places 
and  all  times.  The  peculiar  form  which  this  racial  sin- 
fulness takes  in  any  individual,  is  simply  an  integral 
part  of  the  form  it  takes  in  the  social  group  to  which  he 
belongs,  so  that  his  sin  is  incomprehensible  if  taken  alone 
and  must  always  be  taken  in  connection  with  the  rest. 
This  principle  runs  through  all  the  concentric  circles  of 
solidaristic  consciousness,  through  families,  clans,  tribes, 
nations,  and  races;  the  form  which  sinfulness  takes  in 
any  of  these  can  be  understood  only  in  connection  with 
the  rest.  Therefore  the  total  force  exerted  by  the  flesh 
against  the  spirit  in  all  human  actions  incompatible  with 
the  consciousness  of  God,  can  be  truly  realized  only  when 
we  see  the  totality  of  all  contemporary  life,  never  in  any 
part  alone.'  The  same  holds  true  of  the  succession  of 
generations.  The  congenital  sinfulness  of  one  gener- 
ation is  conditioned  by  the  sinfulness  of  those  who  pre- 
ceded, and  in  turn  conditions  the  sin  of  those  who 
follow."  1 

Ritschl,  another  incisive  and  original  theological 
thinker,  adopted  this  solidaristic  conception  of  sin,  and 
its  correlated  ideas  in  the  doctrine  of  salvation,  as  the 
basis  of  his  theological   system.     He  thinks  that  this, 

1  Schleiermacher,  "  Der  Christliche  Glaube,"  §71,  2.  3d  edition. 
The  translation  and  italics  are  mine.  A  few  unessential  phrases 
are  omitted  to  shorten  the  quotation. 


94  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

and  not  the  theory  of  subjective  rehgion  which  is  com- 
monly quoted  in  connection  with  his  name,  is  Schleier- 
macher's  epoch-making  contribution  to  theology.^  Cer- 
tainly the  passage  I  have  quoted  shows  what  a  capacity 
of  religious  vision  is  evoked  by  a  religious  comprehen- 
sion of  the  solidarity  of  human  life. "")("  The  conscious- 
ness of  solidarity  is  one  of  the  fundamental  conditions 
of  religion,  without  which  it  can  neither  be  rightly  un- 
derstood nor  rightly  lived."  ^  a 

1  Ritschl,  "  Rechtfertigung  und  Versohnung,"  I,  p.  555. 

2  Ritschl,  I,  p.  496. 


'    CHAPTER  X 

THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL   AND    PERSONAL   S.\LVATION     V" 

We  take  up  now  the  doctrine  of  salvation.  All  that 
has  been  said  about  sin  wll,l  have  to  be  kept  in  mind  in 
discussing  salvation,  for  the\:oncepti^p.ns -of  sin  and  sal- 
vation are  always  closely  correlated  in  every  theological 
or  religious  system. 

The  new  thing  in  the  social  gospel  is  the  clearness  and 
insistence  with  which  it  sets  forth  the  necessity  and  the 
possibility  of  redeeming  the  historical  life  of  humanity 
from  the  social  wrongs  which  now  pervade  it  and  which 
act  as  temptations  and  incitements  to  evil  and  as  forces 
of  resistance  to  the  powers  of  redemption.^^  Its  chief  in- 
terest is  concentrated  on  those  manifestations  of  sin  and 
redemption  which  lie  beyond  the  individual  soul.  )''If  our 
exposition  of  the  superpersonal  agents  of  sin  ana  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Evil  is  true,  then  evidently  a  salvation  con- 
fined to  the  soul  and  its  personal  interests  is  an  imper- 
fect and  only  partly  effective  salvation. 

Yet  the  salvation  of  the  individual  is,  of  course,  an 
essential  part  of  salvation.  Every  new  being  is  a  new 
problem  of  salvation.  It  is  always  a  great  and  wonder- 
ful thing  when  a  young  spirit  enters  into  voluntary  obedi- 
ence to  God  and  feels  the  higher  freedom  with  which 
Christ  makes  us  free.  It  is  one  of  the  miracles  of  life. 
The  burden  of  the  individual  is  as  heavy  now  as  ever. 
95 


g6  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

The  consciousness  of  wrong-doing,  of  imperfection,  of  a 
wasted  life  lies  on  many  and  they  need  forgiveness  and 
strength  for  a  new  beginning.  Modern  pessimism  drains 
the  finer  minds  of  their  confidence  in  the  world  and  the 
value  of  life  itself.  At  present  we  gasp  for  air  in  a 
crushing  and  monstrous  world.  Any  return  of  faith  is 
an  experience  of  salvation. 

Therefore  our  discussion  can  not  pass  personal  salva- 
tion by.  We  might  possibly  begin  where  the  old  gospel 
leaves  off,  and  ask  our  readers  to  take  all  the  familiar 
experiences  and  truths  of  personal  evangelism  and  re- 
ligious nufture  for  granted  in  what  follows.  But  our 
understanding  of  personal  salvation  itself  is  deeply  af- 
fected by  the  new  solidaristic  comprehension  furnished 
by  the  social  gospel. 

The  social  gospel  furnishes  new  tests  for  religious  ex- 
perience. We  are  not  disposed  to  accept  the  converted 
souls  whom  the  individualistic  evangelism  supplies,  with- 
out looking  them  over.^  Some  who  have  been  saved  and 
perhaps  reconsecrated  a  number  of  times  are  worth  no 
more  to  the  Kingdom  of  God  than  they  were  before. 
Some  become  worse  through  their  revival  experiences, 
more  self-righteous,  more  opinionated,  more  steeped  in 
unrealities  and  stupid  over  against  the  most  important 
things,  more  devoted  to  emotions  and  unresponsive  to 
real  duties.  We  have  the  highest  authority  for  the  fact 
that  men  may  grow  worse  by  getting  religion.  Jesus 
says  the  Pharisees  compassed  sea  and  land  to  make  a 
proselyte,  and  after  they  had  him,  he  was  twofold  more 
a  child  of  hell  than  his  converters.     To  one  whose  mem- 


PERSONAL   SALVATION  9/ 

cries  run  back  twenty  or  thirty  years,  to  Moody's  time, 
the  methods  now  used  by  some  evangehsts  seem  calcu- 
lated to  produce  skin-deep  changes.  Things  have  sim- 
mered down  to  signing  a  card,  shaking  hands,  or  being 
introduced  to  the  evangelist.  We  used  to  pass  through 
some  deep-soil  ploughing  by  comparison.  It  is  time  to 
overhaul  our  understanding  of  the  kind  of  change  we 
hope  to  produce  by  personal  conversion  and  regenera- 
tion. The  social  gospel  furnishes  some  tests  and 
standards. 

When  we  undertook  to  define  the  nature  of  sin,  we 
accepted  the  old  definition,  that  sin  is  selfishness  and 
rebellion  against  God,  but  we  insisted  on  putting  human- 
ity into  the  picture.  The  definition  of  sin  as  selfishness 
gets  its  reality  and  nipping  force  only  when  we  see  hu- 
manity as  a  great  solidarity  and  God  indwelling  in  it. 
In  the  same  way  the  terms  and  definitions  of  salvation 
get  more  realistic  significance  and  ethical  reach  when  we 
see  the  internal  crises  of  the  individual  in  connection  with 
the  social  forces  that  play  upon  him  or  go  out  from  him. 
The  form  which  the  process  of  redemption  takes  in  a 
given  personality  will  be  determined  by  the  historical 
and  social  spiritual  environment  of  the  man.  At  any 
rate  any  religious  experience  in  which  our  fellow-men 
have  no  part  or  thought,  does  not  seem  to  be  a  distinct- 
ively Christian  experience. 

If  sin  is  selfishness,  salvation  must  be  a  change  which 
turns  a  man  from  self  to  God  and  humanity.  His  sin- 
fulness consisted  in  a  selfish  attitude,  in  which  he  was 
at  the  centre  of  the  universe,  and  God  and  all  his  fellow- 
men  were  means   to   serve  his  pleasures,   increase   his 


98  A    THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

wealth,  and  set  off  his  egotisms.  Complete  salvation, 
therefore,  would  consist  in  an  attitude  of  love  in  which 
he  would  freely  co-ordinate  his  life  with  the  life  of  his 
fellows  in  obedience  to  the  loving  impulses  of  the  spirit 
of  God,  thus  taking  his  part  in  a  divine  organism  of 
mutual  service.  When  a  man  is  in  a  state  of  sin,  he  may 
be  willing  to  harm  the  life  and  lower  the  self-respect  of 
a  woman  for  the  sake  of  his  desires;  he  may  be  willing 
to  take  some  of  the  mental  and  spiritual  values  out  of 
the  life  of  a  thousand  families,  and  lower  the  human  level 
of  a  whole  mill-town  in  order  to  increase  his  own  divi- 
dends or  maintain  his  autocratic  sense  of  power.  If 
this  man  came  under  the  influence  of  the  mind  of  Christ, 
he  would  see  men  and  women  as  children  of  God  with 
divine  worth  and  beauty,  and  this  realization  would  cool 
his  lust  or  covetousness.  Living  now  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  pervading  spiritual  life  of  God,  he  would 
realize  that  all  his  gifts  and  resources  are  a  loan  of  God 
for  higher  ends,  and  would  do  his  work  with  greater 

^/simplicity  of  mind  and  brotherliness. 

/i,\  Of  course  in  actual  life  there  is  no  case  of  complete 
I  Christian  transformation.  It  takes  an  awakened  and 
regenerated  mind  a  long  time  to  find  itself  intellectually 
and  discover  what  life  henceforth  is  to  mean  to  him,  and 
his  capacity  for  putting  into  practice  what  he  knows  he 
wants  to  do,  will  be  something  like  the  capacity  of  an 
untrained  hand  to  express  artistic  Imaginations,'  But  In 
some  germinal  and  rudimentary  form  salvation  must  turn 
us  from  a  life  centred  on  ourselves  toward  a  life  going 
out  toward  God  and  men.  God  is  the  all-embracing 
source  and  exponent  of  the  common  life  and  good  of 


PERSONAL    SALVATION  99 

mankind.     When  we  submit  to  God,  we  submit  to  the 
supremacy  of  the  common  good.     Salvation  is  the  vol-     9 
untary  socializing  of  the  soul. 

Conversion  has  usually  been  conceived  as  a  break  with 
our  own  sinful  past.  But  in  many  cases  it  is  also  a  break 
with  the  sinful  past  of  a  social  group.  Suppose  a  boy  ^_^ 
has  been  joining  in  cruel  or  lustful  actions  because  his 
gang  regards  such  things  as  fine  and  manly.  If  later  he 
breaks  with  such  actions,  he  will  not  only  have  to  wrestle 
with  his  own  habits,  but  with  the  social  attractiveness 
and  influence  of  his  little  humanity.  If  a  working  man 
becomes  an  abstainer,  he  will  find  out  that  intolerance  is 
not  confined  to  the  good.  In  primitive  Christianity  bap- 
tism stood  for 'a  conscious  break  with  pagan  society. 
This  gave  it  a  powerful  spiritual  reaction.  Conversion 
is  most  valuable  if  it  throws  a  revealing  light  not  only 
across  our  own  past,  but  across  the  social  life  of  which 
we  are  part,  and  makes  our  repentance  a  vicarious  sor- 
row for  all.  The  prophets  felt  so  about  the  sins  of  their 
nation.  Jesus  felt  so  about  Jerusalem,  and  Paul  about 
unbelieving  Israel. 

We  call  our  religious  crisis  "  conversion  "  when  we 
think  of  our  own  active  break  with  old  habits  and  asso-  '' 
ciations  and  our  turning  to  a  new  life.  Paul  introduced 
the  forensic  term  "justification"  into  our  religious  vocab- 
ulary to  express  a  changed  legal  status  before  God;  his 
term  "  adoption  "  expresses  the  same  change  in  terms  de- 
rived from  family  life.  We  call  the  change  "regenera- 
tion" when  we  think  of  it  as  an  act  of  God  within  us, 
creating  a  new  life. 


lOO  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

The  classical  passage  on  regeneration  (John  iii)  con-- 
nects  it  with  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Only  an  inward  new 
birth  will  enable  us  to  ''see  the  Kingdom  of  God"  and 
to  "enter  the  Kingdom  of  God."  The  larger  vision  and  - 
the  larger  contact  both  require  a  new  development  of 
our  spirit.  In  our  unregenerate  condition  the  conscious- 
ness of  God  is  weak,  occasional,  and  suppressed.  The 
more  Jesus  Christ  becomes  dominant  in  us,  the  more 
does  the  light  and  life  of  God  shine  steadily  in  us,  and 
create  a  religious  personality  which  we  did  not  have. 
Life  is  lived  under  a  new  synthesis. 

It  is  strange  and  interesting  that  regeneration  is  thus 
connected  with  the  Kingdom  of  God  in  John  iii.  The 
term  has  otherwise  completely  dropped  out  of  the  termin- 
ology of  the  fourth  gospel.  If  we  have  here  a  verbatim 
memory  of  a  saying  of  Jesus,  the  survival  would  indi- 
cate how  closely  the  idea  of  personal  regeneration  was 
originally  bound  up  with  the  Kingdom  hope.  When 
John  the  Baptist  first  called  men  to  conversion  and  a 
change  of  mind,  all  his  motives  and  appeals  were  taken 
from  the  outlook  toward  the  Kingdom.  Evidently  the 
entire  meaning  of  "  conversion  "  and  "  regeneration  "  was 
subtly  changed  when  the  conception  of  the  Kingdom  dis- 
appeared from  Christian  thought.  The  change  in  our- 
selves was  now  no  longer  connected  with  a  great  divine 
change  in  humanity,  for  which  we  must  prepare  and  get 
fit.  )\If  we  are  converted,  what  are  we  converted  to?  If 
we 'are  regenerated,  does  the  scope  of  so  divine  a  trans- 
formation end  in  our  "  going  to  heaven  "  ?  The  nexus 
between  our  religious  experience  and  humanity  seems 


PERSONAL   SALVATION  lOI 

gone  when  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  not  present  in  the  idea 
of  regeneration.    \' 
'\ 

Through  the  experience  and  influence  of  Paul  the  word 
"  faith  "  has  gained  a  central  place  in  the  terminology  of 
salvation.  Its  meaning  fluctuates  according  to  the  domi- 
nant conception  of  religion.  With  Paul  it  was  a  compre- 
hensive mystical  symbol  covering  his  whole  inner  experi- 
ence of  salvation  and  emancipation,  which  flooded  his 
soul  with  joy  and  power.  On  the  other  hand  wherever 
doctrine  becomes  rigid  and  is  the  pre-eminent  thing  in 
religion,  "  faith  "  means  submission  of  the  mind  to  the 
affirmations  of  dogma  and  theology,  and,  in  particular, 
acceptance  of  the  plan  of  salvation  and  trust  in  the  vi- 
carious atonement  of  Christ.  Where  the  idea  of  the 
Church  dominates  religion,  "  faith  "  means  mainly  sub- 
mission to  the  teaching  and  guidance  of  the  Church.  In 
popular  religion  it  may  shrivel  up  to  something  so  small 
as  putting  a  finger  on  a  Scripture  text  and  "claiming 
the  promise." 

In  primitive  Christianity  the  forward  look  of  expect-( 
ancy  was  characteristic  of  religion.  The  glory  of  the^ 
coming  dawn  was  on  the  Eastern  clouds.  This  influ- 
enced the  conception  of  "  faith."  It  was  akin  to  hope, 
the  forward  gaze  of  the  pioneers.  The  historical  illus- 
tratli)tions  of  faith  in  Hebrews  xi  show  faith  launching  life 
toward  the  unseen  future. 

This  is  the  aspect  of  faith  which  is  emphasized  by  the  I 
social  gospel.  It  is  not  so  much  the  endorsement  of  ideas! 
formulated  in  the  past,  as  expectancy  and  confidence  in! 


102  A   THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

the  coming  salvation  of  God.     In  this  respect  the  for- 
ward look  of  primitive  Christianity  is  resumed.     Faith 
once  more  means  prophetic  vision.     It  is  faith  to  as- 
sume that  this  is  a  good  world  and  that  life  is  worth 
living.     It  is  faith  to  assert  the  feasibility  of  a  fairly 
righteous  and  fraternal  social  order.     In  the  midst  of  a 
despotic  and  predatory  industrial  life  it  is  faith  to  stake 
our  business  future  on  the  proposition  that  fairness,  kind- 
ness, and  fraternity  will  work.     When  war  inflames  a 
nation,  it  is  faith  to  believe  that  a  peaceable  disposition  is 
a  workable  international  policy.     Amidst  the  disunion  of 
Christendom  it  is  faith  to  look  for  unity  and  to  express 
unity  in  action.     It  is  faith  to  see  God  at  work  in  the 
*  world  and  to  claim  a  share  in  his  job.     Faith  is  an  ener-^ 
igetic  act  of  the  will,  affirming  our  fellowship  with  God 
t  and  man,  declaring  our  solidarity  with  the  Kingdom  of 
tGod,  and  repudiating  selfish  isolation. 

1  "Sanctification,"  according  to  almost  any  definition,  is  " 
the  continuation  of  that  process  of  spiritual  education 
and  transformation,  "by  which  a  human  personality  be- 
comes a  willing  organ  of  the  spirit  of  Christ.  Those  _ 
who  believe  in  the  social  gospel  can  share  in  any  methods 
for  the  cultivation  of  the  spiritual  life,  if  only  they  have 
an  ethical  outcome.  The  social  gospel  takes  up  the 
message  of  the  Hebrew  prophets,  that  ritual  and  emo- 
tional religion  is  harmful  unless  it  results  in  righteous- 
ness. Sanctification  is  through  increased  fellowship  with 
God  and  man.  But  fellowship  is  impossible  without  an 
exchange  of  service.  Here  we  come  back  to  our  previous 
'proposition  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  the  common- \ 


PERSONAL   SALVATION  IO3 

wealth  of  co-operative  service. and  that  the  most  com-lj 
mon  form  of  sinful  selfishness  is  the  effort  to  escape  from 
labor.     Sanctification,  therefore,  can  not  be  attained  in 
an  unproductive  life,  unless  it  is  unproductive  through 
necessity.     In  the  long  run  the  only  true  way  to  gainj" 
moral  insight,  self -discipline,  humility,  love,  and  a  con- 1 
sciousness  of  coherence  and  dependence,  is  to  take  our; 
place  among  those  who  serve  one  another  by  useful  labor. I 
Parasitism  blinds;  work  reveals. 

The  fact  that  the  social  gospel  is  a  distinct  type  of 
religious  experience  is  proved  by  comparing  it  with,  my s-- 
ticism.  In  most  other  types  of  Christianity  the  mystic 
experience  is  rated  as  the  highest  form  of  sanctification. 
In  Catholicism  the  monastic  life  is  the  way  of  perfection, 
and  mystic  rapture  is  the  highest  attainment  and  reward 
of  monastic  contemplation  and  service.  In  Protestantism, 
which  has  no  monastic  leisure  for  mystic  exercises,  mys- 
ticism is  of  a  homelier  type,  but  in  almost  every  group 
of  believers  there  are  some  individuals  who  profess  to 
have  attained  a  higher  stage  of  sanctification  through  "  a 
second  blessing,"  "  the  higher  life,"  "  complete  sanctifica- 
tion," "perfect  love,"  Christian  science,  or  Theosophy. 
The  literature  and  organizations  ministering  to  this  mys- 
tical life,  go  on  the  assumption  that  it  far  transcends  the 
ordinary  way  in  spiritual  blessings  and  sanctifying  power. 

Mysticism  is  a  steep  short-cut  to  communion  with  God. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  under  favorable  conditions  it  has 
produced  beautiful  results  of  unselfishness,  humility,  and 
undauntable  courage.  Its  danger  is  that  it  isolates.  In 
enersretic  mvsticism  the  soul  concentrates  on  God,  shuts 


104  -^    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE    SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

out  the  world,  and  is  conscious  only  of  God  and  itself. 
In  its  highest  form,  even  the  consciousness  of  self  is 
swallowed  up  in  the  all-filling  possession  of  God.  No 
wonder  it  is  absorbing  and  wonderful.  But  we  have 
to  turn  our  back  on  the  world  to  attain  this  experience, 
and  when  we  have  attained  it,  it  makes  us  indifferent  to 
the  world.  What  does  Time  matter  when  we  can  live 
in  Eternity?  What  gift  can  this  world  offer  us  after 
we  have  entered  into  the  luminous  presence  of  God? 

The  mystic  way  to  holiness  is  not  through  humanity 
but  above  it.  We  can  not  set  aside  the  fundamental  law 
of  God  that  way.  He  made  us  for  one  another,  and  our 
highest  perfection  comes  not  by  isolation  but  by  love. 
The  way  of  holiness  through  human  fellowship  and  serv- 
ice is  slower  and  lowlier,  but  its  results  are  more  essen- 
tially Christian.  Paul  dealt  with  the  mystic  phenomena 
of  religion  when  he  dealt  with  the  charismata  of  primi- 
tive   Christianity,    especially    with    glossolalia     (i    Cor. 

:xii-xiv).  It  is  a  striking  fact  that  he  ranks  the  spir- 
itual gifts  not  according  to  their  mystic  rapture,  but  ac- 
cording to  their  rational  control  and  their  power  of  serv- 

.,ing  others.  His  great  chapter  on  love  dominates  the 
whole  discussion  and  is  offered  as  a  counter-poise  and 
antidote  to  the  dangers  of  mysticism.^ 

Mysticism  is  not  the  maturest  form  of  sanctification. 

1 1  have  set  this  forth  fully  in  my  little  book,  "  Dare  We  Be 
Christians?"  (Pilgrim  Press,  Boston.)  In  my  "Prayers  of  the 
Social  Awakening"  (Pilgrim  Press),  I  have  tried  to  connect  the 
social  consciousness  with  the  devotional  life  by  prayers  envision- 
ing social  groups  and  movements.  Professor  Herrmann's  "  The 
Communion  of  the  Christian  with  God  "  dealf  with  the  difference 
of  the  mystic  way  and  the  way  of  service. 


X 


PERSONAL   SALVATION  IO5 

As  Professor  Royce  well  says  :  "  It  is  the  always  young,  it 
is  the  childlike,  it  is  the  essentially  immature  aspect  of 
the  deeper  religious  life.  Its  ardor,  its  pathos,  its  illu- 
sions, and  its  genuine  illuminations  have  all  the  char- 
acters of  youth  about  them,  characters  beautiful,  but 
capricious."  ^  There  is  even  question  whether  mysti- 
cism proper,  with  rapture  and  absorption,  is  Christian  in 
its  antecedents,  or  Platonic. 

I  believe  in  prayer  and  meditation  in  the  presence  of 
God;  in  the  conscious  purging  of  the  soul  from  fear, 
love  of  gain,  and  selfish  ambition,  through  realizing  God ; 
in  bringing  the  intellect  into  alignment  with  the  mind  of 
Christ;  and  in  re-affirming  the  allegiance  of  the  will  to 
the  Kingdom  of  God.     When  a  man  goes  up  against 
hard  work,  conflict,  loneliness,  and  the  cross,  it  is  his 
right  to  lean  back  on  the  Eternal  and  to  draw  from  the  : 
silent  reservoirs.     But  what  we  get  thus  is  for  use.     Per- 
sonal sanctiiication  must  serve  the   Kingdom  of   God. 
Any  mystic  experience  which  makes  our  fellow-men  less 
real  and  our  daily  labour  less  noble,  is  dangerous  religion. 
A  religious  experience  is  not  Christian  unless  it  binds  usl 
closer  to  men  and  commits  us  more  deeply  to  the  King-  J 
dom  of  God.  4 

Thus  the  fundamental  theological  terms  about  the  ex- 
periences of  salvation  get  a  new  orientation,  correction, 
and  enrichment  through  the  religious  point  of  view  con- 
tained in  the  social  gospel.  These  changes  would  effect 
an  approximation  to  the  spirit  and  outlook  of  primitive 
Christianity,  going  back  of  Catholicism  and  Protestantism 
alike. 

^  Royce,  "  Problem  of  Christianity,"  I,  p.  400. 


I06  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

The  definitions  we  have  attempted  are  not  merely  aca- 
demic and  hypothetical  exercises.  Religion  is  actually 
being  experienced  in  such  ways. 

In  the  Bible  we  have  several  accounts  of  religious  ex- 
periences which  were  fundamental  in  the  life  of  its  great- 
est characters.  A  few  are  told  in  their  own  striking 
phrases.  Others  are  described  by  later  writers,  and  in 
that  case  indicate  what  popular  opinion  expected  such 
I  men  to  experience.  .^Now,  none  of  these  experiences, 
fso  far  as  I  see,*'"2rF<^of  that  solitary  type  in  which  a  soul 
,fstruggles  for  its  own  salvation  in  order  to  escape  the 
Ipenalties  of  sin  or  to  attain  perfection  and  peace  for 
Itself.  All  were  experienced  with  a  conscious  outlook' 
toward  humanity.  AWhen  Moses  saw  the  glory  of  God 
in  the  flaming  bush  and  learned  the  ineffable  name  of 
the  Eternal,  it  was  not  the  salvation  of  Moses  which 
was  in  question  but  the  salvation  of  his  people  from  the 
bondage  of  Egypt./^^When  young  Samuel  first  heard  the 
call  of  the  Voice^  in  the  darkness,  it  spoke  to  him  of 
priestly  extortion  and  the  troubled  future  of  his  people. 
_  When  Isaiah  saw  the  glory  of  the  Lord  above  the  Cheru- 
bim, he  realized  by  contrast  that  he  was  a  man  of  unclean 
lips,  but  also  that  he  dwelt  among  a  people  of  unclean 
lips.yHis  cleansing  and  the  dedication  which  followed 
were  his  preparation  for  taking  hold  of  the  social  situa- 
tion of  his  nation.  In  Jeremiah  we  are  supposed  to  have 
the  attainment  of  the  religion  of  the  individual,  but  even 
his  intimate  experiences  were  all  in  full  view  of  the  fate 
of  his  nation.  Paul's  experience  at  Damascus  was  the 
culmination  of  his  personal  struggle  and  his  emergence 
into  spiritual  freedom.     But  his  crisis  got  its  intensity 


PERSONAL   SALVATION  I^Z 

from  its  social  background.  He  was  deciding,  so  far  as 
he  was  concerned,  between  the  old  narrow  nationalistic 
relioion  of  conservative  Judaism  and  a  wider  destiny  for 
his  people,  between  the  validity  of  the  Law  and  spiritual 
liberty,  between  the  exclusive  claims  of  Israel  on  the 
Messianic  hope  and  a  world-wide  participation  in  the 
historical  prerogatives  of  the  first-born  people.  The 
issues  for  which  his  later  life  stood  were  condensed  in 
the  davs  at  Damascus,  as  we  can  see  from  his  own  recital 
in  Gal'atians  i,  and  these  religious  issues  were  the  funda- 
mental social  questions  for  his  nation  at  that  time. 

We  can  not  afford  to  rate  this  group  of  religious  ex- 
periences at  a  low  value.     As  with  us  all,  the  theology  of 
the  prophets  was  based  on  their  personal  experiences. 
Out  of  them  grew  their  ethical  monotheism  and  their 
God-consciousness.     This  was  the  highest  element  in  the 
spiritual  heritage  of  his  people  which  came  to  Jesus.     He 
re-interpreted  and  perfected  it  in  his  personality,  and 
in  that  form  it  has  remained  the  highest  factor  among 
the  various  historical  strains  combined  in  our  religion. 
These    prophetic    experiences    were    not    superficial. 
There  was  soul-shaking  emotion,  a  deep  sense  of  sin,  faith^ 
in  God,  longing  for  him,  self-surrender,  enduement  with 
spiritual  power.     Yet  they  were  not  ascetic,  not  indi- 
vidualistic, not  directed  toward  a  future  life.     They  were 
social,  political,  solidaristic. 

The  religious  experiences  evoked  by  the  social  gospel 
belong  to  the  same  type,  though  deeply  modified,  of 
course,  by  the  profound  differences  between  their  age  and 
ours.  What  the  wars  and  oppressions  of  Israel  and 
Judah  meant  to  them,  the  wars  and  exploitations  of  mod- 


I08  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

ern  civilization  mean  to  us.  In  these  things  God  speaks 
to  our  souls.  When  we  face  these  questions  we  meet 
God.  An  increasing  number  of  young  men  and  women, 
■ — and  some  of  the  best  of  them  —  are  getting  their  call 
to  repentance,  to  a  new  way  of  life,  and  to  the  conquest 
of  self  in  this  way,  and  a  good  many  older  men  are  su- 
perimposing a  new  experience  on  that  of  their  youth. 

Other  things  being  equal,  a  solidaristic  religious  ex- 
perience is  more  distinctively  Christian  than  an  indi- 
vidualistic religious  experience.  To  be  afraid  of  hell  or 
purgatory  and  desirous  of  a  life  without  pain  or  trouble 
in  heaven  was  not  In  itself  Christian.  It  was  self-inter- 
est on  a  higher  level.  It  is  not  strange  that  men  were 
wholly  intent  on  saving  themselves  as  long  as  such  dan- 
gers as  Dante  describes  were  real  to  their  minds.  A  man 
might  be  pardoned  for  forgetting  his  entire  social  con- 
sciousness if  he  found  himself  dangling  over  a  blazing 
pit.  But  even  in  more  spiritual  forms  of  conversion, 
as  long  as  men  are  wholly  intent  on  their  own  destiny, 
they  do  not  necessarily  emerge  from  selfishness.  It  only 
changes  its  form.  A  Christian  regeneration  must  have 
an  outlook  toward  humanity  and  result  in  a  higher  social 

.consciousness. 

\  The  saint  of  the  future  will  need  not  only  a  theocen- 
tric  mysticism  which  enables  him  to  realize  God,  but  an 
anthropocentric  mysticism  which  enables  him  to  realize 
his  fellow-men  in  God. /(The  more  we  approach  pure 
Christianity,  the  more  will  the  Christian  signify  a  man 
who  loves  mankind  with  a  religious  passion  and  excludes 
none.     The  feeling  which  Jesus  had  when  he  said,  "I  am 


PERSONAL    SALVATION  IO9 

the  hungr}%  the  naked,  the  lonely,"  will  be  in  the  emo- 
tional consciousness  of  all  holy  men  in  the  coming  days. 
The  sense  of  solidarity  is  one  of  the  distinctive  marks  oi\j 
the  true  followers  of  Jesus.  i 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   SALVATION   OF   THE   SUPER-PERSONAL    FORCES. 

In  discussing  the  doctrine  of  sin  we  faced  the  fact  that 
redemption  will  have  to  deal  not  only  with  the  weakness 
of  flesh  and  blood,  but  with  the  strength  of  principalities 
and  powers.^  Beyond  the  feeble  and  short-lived  indi- 
vidual towers  the  social  group  as  a  super-personal  entity, 
dominating  the  individual,  assimilating  him  to  its  moral 
standards,  and  enforcing  them  by  the  social  sanctions  of 
approval  or  disapproval. 

When  these  super-personal  forces  are  based  on  an  evil 
principle,  or  directed  toward  an  evil  purpose,  or  cor- 
rupted by  some  controlling  group  interest  which  is  hos- 
tile to  the  common  good,  they  are  sinners  of  sublimer 
mould,  and  they  block  the  way  of  redemption.  They  are 
to  us  what  demonic  personalities  were  to  earlier  Chris- 
tian minds.  Men  of  religious  vision  have  always  seen 
social  communities  in  that  way.  The  prophets  dealt  with 
Israel  and  Judah,  with  Moab  and  Assyria,  as  with  per- 
sonalities having  a  continuous  life  and  spirit  and  destiny. 
Jesus  saw  Jerusalem  as  a  man  might  see  a  beloved  woman 
who  is  driven  by  haughtiness  and  self-will  into  tragic 
ruin. 

In  our  age  these  super-personal  social  forces  present 
more  difficult  problems  than  ever  before.     The  scope 

1  Chapter  VIII. 


SALVATION    OF   SUPER-rERSONAL   FORCES  III 

and  diversity  of  combination  is  becoming  constantly 
greater.  The  strategy  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  short- 
sighted indeed  if  it  does  not  devote  thought  to  their  sal- 
vation and  conversion. 

The  salvation  of  the  composite  personalities,  like  that 
of  individuals,  consists  in  coming  under  the  law  of 
Christ.     A  few  illustrations  will  explain  how  this  applies. 

Two  principles  are  contending  with  each  other  for 
future  control  in  the  field  of  industrial  and  commercial 
organization,  the  capitalistic  and  the  co-operative.  The 
effectiveness  of  the  capitalistic  method  in  the  production 
of  wealth  is  not  questioned;  modern  civilization  is  evi- 
dence of  it.  But  we  are  also  familiar  with  capitalistic 
methods  in  the  production  of  human  wreckage.  Its 
one-sided  control  of  economic  power  tempts  to  exploita- 
tion and  oppression;  it  directs  the  productive  process  of 
society  primarily  toward  the  creation  of  private  profit 
rather  than  the  service  of  human  needs ;  it  demands  auto- 
cratic management  and  strengthens  the  autocratic  prin- 
ciple in  all  social  affairs ;  it  has  impressed  a  materialistic 
spirit  on  our  whole  civilization. 

On  the  other  hand  organizations  formed  on  the  co- 
operative principle  are  not  primarily  for  profit  but  for  the 
satisfaction  of  human  wants,  and  the  aim  is  to  distribute 
ownership,  control,  and  economic  benefits  to  a  large  num- 
ber of  co-operators. 

The  difference  between  a  capitalistic  organization  and 
a  co-operative  comes  out  clearly  in  the  distribution  of  vot- 
ing power.  Capitalistic  joint  stock  companies  work  on 
the  plan  of  "  one  share,  one  vote."     Therewith  power  is 


112  A    THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

located  in  money.  One  crafty  person  who  has  a  hun- 
dred shares  can  outvote  ninety-nine  righteous  men  who 
have  a  share  apiece,  and  a  small  minority  can  outvote  all 
the  rest  if  it  holds  a  majority  of  stock.  Money  is 
stronger  than  life,  character,  and  personality. 

Co-operatives  work  on  the  plan  of  "  one  man,  one 
vote."  A  man  who  holds  one  share  has  as  much  voting 
power  as  a  man  with  ten  shares ;  his  personality  counts. 
If  a  man  wants  to  lead  and  direct,  he  can  not  do  it  by 
money  power ;  he  must  do  it  by  character,  sobriety,  and 
good  judgment.  The  small  stockholders  are  not  passive ; 
they  take  part;  they  must  be  persuaded  and  taught.  The 
superior  ability  of  the  capable  can  not  outvote  the  rest, 
but  has  to  train  them.  Consequently  the  co-operatives 
develop  men  and  educate  a  community  in  helpful  loy- 
alty and  comradeship.  This  is  the  advent  of  true  democ- 
racy in  economic  life.  Of  course  the  co-operative  prin- 
ciple is  not  a  sovereign  specific;  the  practical  success  of 
a  given  association  depends  on  good  judgment  and  the 
loyalty  of  its  constituents.  But  the  co-operatives,  man- 
aged by  plain  men,  often  with  little  experience,  have  not 
only  held  their  own  in  Europe  against  the  picked  sur- 
vivors of  the  capi-talistic  competitive  battle,  but  have 
forged  steadily  ahead  into  enormous  financial  totals,  have 
survived  and  increased  even  during  the  war,  and  by 
their  helpful  moral  influence  have  gone  a  long  way  to 
restore  a  country  like  Ireland  which  had  long  been 
drained  and  ruined  by  capitalism. 

Here,  I  think,  we  ha\^_the_diffjrence.betw.e^^^ 
and_unsaved  organizations.     The  one  class  is  under  the 
law  of  Christ,  the  other  under  the  law  of  mammon.     The 


SALVATION    OF    SUPER-PERSONAL    FORCES  II3 

one  is  democratic  and  the  other  autocratic.  Whenever  | 
capitaHsm  has  invaded  a  new  country  or  industry,  there/ 
has  been  a  speeding  up  in  labor  and  in  the  production  of; 
wealth,  but  always  with  a  trail  of  human  misery,  discon-i 
tent,  bitterness,  and  demoralization.  When  co-opera- j 
tion  has  invaded  a  country  there  has  been  increased  thrift,  \ 
education,  and  neighborly  feeling,  and  there  has  been  no  \ 
trail  of  concomitant  evil  and  no  cries  of  protest.  The  ( 
men  in  capitalistic  business  may  be  the  best  of  men,  far  ' 
superior  in  ability  to  the  average  committee  member  of 
a  co-operative,  but  the  latter  type  of  organization  is  the  "^ 
higher,  and  when  co-operation  has  had  as  long  a  time  , 
to  try  out  its  methods  as  capitalism,  the  latter  will  rank  ' 
with  feudalism  as  an  evil  memory  of  mankind. 

Super-personal  forces  are  saved  when  they  come  under 
the  law  of  Christ.     A  State  which  uses  its  terrible  power  I 
of  coercion  to  smite  and  crush  offenders  as  a  protection  ; 
to  the  rest,  is  still  under  brutal  law.     A  State  which 
deals  with  those  who  have  erred  in  the  way  of  teaching,  , 
discipline,  and  restoration,  has  come  under  the  law  of  ; 
Christ  and  is  to  that  extent  a  saved  community.     "  By 
their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them."     States  are  known  by 
their  courts  and  prisons  and  contract  labor  systems,  or 
by  their  juvenile  courts  and  parole  systems.     A  change 
in  penology  may  be  an  evidence  of  salvation. 

A  State  which  uses  its  superior  power  to  overrun  a 
weaker  neighbor  by  force,  or  to  wrest  a  valuable  right 
of  way  from  it  by  instigating  a  coup  d'etat,  or  uses  in- 
timidation to  secure  mining  or  railway  concessions  or  to 
force  a  loan  at  usurious  rates  on  a  half-civilized  State,  is 
in  mortal  sin.     A  State  which  asks  only  for  an  open  door 


114  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL 

and  keeps  its  own  door  open  in  return,  and  which  speaks 
as  courteously  to  a  backward  State  as  to  one  with  a  big 
fleet,  is  to  that  extent  a  Christian  community.^ 

With  composite  personalities  as  with  individuals  "  the 
love  of  money  is  the  root  of  all  evil."  Communities  and 
nations  fall  into  wild  fits  of  anger  and  cruelty;  they  are 
vain  and  contemptuous  of  others;  they  lie  and  love  lies; 
they  sin  against  their  critical  conscience;  they  fall  in 
love  with  virile  and  magnetic  men  just  as  women  do. 
These  are  the  temptations  and  dangers  which  every  de- 
mocracy will  meet  and  from  which  it  will  recover  with 
loss  and  some  shame.  But,  as  has  been  said  before,  evils 
become  bold  and  permanent  when  there  is  money  in  them. 
It  was  the  need  of  protecting  wealth  against  poverty 
which  made  the  courts  and  the  criminal  law  so  cruel  in 
the  past.  It  was  theological  superstition  which  started 
the  epidemic  of  witch  trials  In  Europe,  but  it  was  the 
large  fees  that  fell  to  the  lawyers  and  informers  which 
made  that  craze  so  enduring.  Nearly  all  modern  wars 
have  had  their  origin  in  the  covetousness  of  trade  and 
finance.^ 

If  unearned  gain  is  the  chief  corrupter  of  professions, 
institutions,  and  combinations  of  men,  these  super-per- 
sonal beings  will  be  put  on  the  road  to  salvation  when 
their  graft  is  in  some  way  cut  off  and  they  are  compelled 
to  subsist  on  the  reward  of  honest  service. 

The  history  of  the  Church  furnishes  a  striking  exam- 

1  This  matter  of  saving  the  community  life  has  been  discussed 
more  fully  in  my  book,  "  Christianizing  the  Social  Order,"  the 
Macmillan  Company,  1912. 

2  See  historical  instances  in  F.  C.  Howe,  "Why  War?" 


S.\LVATI0N    OF    SUPER-PERSONAL    FORCES  II5 

pie.  For  generations  before  the  Reformation  the  con- 
dition of  the  Church  and  of  the  ministry  was  the  sorest 
social  question  of  the  time,  weighing  heavily  on  the 
conscience  of  all  good  men.  The  ministrations  of  the 
Church,  the  sacrament  of  the  altar,  the  merit  gained  by 
the  sacrifice  of  the  mass,  the  penitential  system,  the  prac- 
tice of  indulgences,  had  been  turned  into  means  of  great 
income  to  the  Church  and  those  who  were  in  control  of 
it.  The  rank  and  file  of  the  priests  and  monks  were  from 
the  common  people,  and  their  incomes  were  poor.  But 
the  higher  positions  of  the  Church  and  the  wealthier  mon- 
asteries were  in  possession  of  the  upper  classes,  who 
filled  the  lucrative  places  with  their  younger  sons  or  un- 
married daughters.  Where  rich  sinecures  existed  and  an 
immense  patronage  was  in  the  gift  of  the  higher  church- 
men, the  rake-off  was  naturally  practised  and  perfected. 
Everyone  who  had  paid  for  getting  his  position,  recouped 
his  investment.  The  highest  institution  of  service  had 
become  the  most  glaring  example  of  graft.  Since  the 
Church  always  resisted  the  interference  of  the  laity, 
and  since  the  oligarchy  which  surrounded  the  papacy  was 
itself  the  chief  beneficiary  of  the  ecclesiastical  graft,  re- 
form was  successfully  blocked  out,  or  quickly  lapsed  when 
it  was  attempted. 

It  was  this  profit  system  in  the  Church  which  produced 
the  religious  unrest  and  finally  the  revolutionary  upheaval 
of  the  Reformation  in  some  nations.  Men  were  not  dis- 
satisfied with  the  doctrines  of  the  Church.  There  were 
surprisingly  few  theological  heretics.  Wycliffe  and  his 
followers  are  the  only  ones  that  gained  popular  influence, 
and  his  chief  interest,  too,  was  in  the  social  utilization  of 


Il6  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE    SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

the  wealth  of  the  Church.  Men  like  Savonarola  were  not 
doctrinal  reformers,  but  were  trying  to  cleanse  the  Church 
of  its  graft  and  the  resulting  idleness  and  vice.  The  ideal 
of  "  the  poverty  of  the  Church,"  which  was  common  to 
men  so  unlike  as  Saint  Bernard,  Arnold  of  Brescia,  Saint 
Francis,  and  all  the  democratic  sects,  must  be  understood 
over  against  the  vested  wealth,  the  graft,  and  the  semi- 
governmental  power  of  the  Church.  They  wanted  the 
Church  voluntarily  to  give  up  its  wealth,  and  to  put  its 
ministers  on  the  basis  of  service  and  the  daily  bread. 

The  Church  refused  to  take  this  heroic  path  of  re- 
pentance of  its  own  free  will.  So  it  was  compelled  to 
take  it  In  all  the  countries  which  officially  adopted  the 
Reformation,  the  possessions  and  vested  incomes  of  the 
Church  were  secularized.  The  sinecures  mostly  disap- 
peared. The  bishops  lost  their  governmental  functions. 
Everywhere  the  reform  movements  converged  on  this 
impoverishment  of  the  Church  with  a  kind  of  collective 
instinct  Luther's  theses  on  indulgences  got  their  popu- 
larity not  by  their  new  and  daring  theology,  for  they  were 
a  hesitating  and  wavering  statement  of  a  groping  mind, — 
but  by  the  fact  that  they  touched  one  of  the  chief  sources 
of  papal  income.  Several  of  the  great  doctrines  of  the 
Reformation  got  their  vitality  by  their  internal  connec- 
tion with  the  question  of  church  property. 

The  process  of  reformation  which  stripped  the  Church 
of  its  landed  wealth  and  privileges  was  nothing  beautiful. 
It  was  high-class  looting.  Only  a  small  portion  of  the 
wealth  was  used  to  endow  education  and  charity.  Most 
of  it  was  seized  by  kings,  princes,  and  nobles.  This  gave 
a  new  lease  of  life  to  autocracy,  and  in  England  set  up 


SALVATIOxY    OF    SUPER-PERSONAL    FORCES  II7 

some  of  the  splendid  aristocratic  families,  who  still  con- 
sume what  was  once  given  to  God.  But  this  unholy  pro- 
cedure did  cleanse  the  Church  and  its  ministry  of  graft. 
When  there  were  few  large  incomes,  the  rake-off  per- 
force ceased.  A  body  of  ministers  developed  who  were 
on  the  whole  educated,  clean,  and  willing  to  ser^-e  to  the 
best  of  their  understanding  on  a  meagre  salary.  A  o-reat 
profession  had  been  saved.  Its  salvation  did  not  come 
from  theology,  as  theology  would  have  us  believe. 
Where  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy  is  on  the  basis  of 
hard  work  and  plain  income,  it  has  shown  similar  im- 
provement. The  remedy  which  purified  the  ministry  and 
the  Church  "so  as  by  fire,"  was  that  "poverty  of  the 
Church  "  which  the  medieval  reformers  had  demanded. 
The  average  minister  will  not  be  in  doubt  that  he  has 
married  the  Lady  Poverty,  and  that  this  keeps  him  from 
wantonness. 

The  salvation  of  the  super-personal  beings  is  by  com- 
mg  under  the  law  of  Christ.  The  fundamental  step  of 
repentance  and  conversion  for  professions  and  organi- 
zations is  to  give  up  monopoly  power  and  the  incomes  de- 
rived from  legalized  extortion,  and  to  come  under  the 
law  of  service,  content  with  a  fair  income  for  honest 
work.  The  corresponding  step  in  the  case  of  govern- 
ments and  political  oligarchies,  both  in  monarchies  and  in 
capitalistic  semi-democracies,  is  to  submit  to  real  democ- 
racy. Therewith  they  step  out  of  the  Kingdom  of  Evil 
into  the  Kingdom  of  God. 


/'\    CHAPTER  XII 

THE    CHURCH    AS   THE    SOCIAL    FACTOR   OF   SALVATION  ^^' 

What  is  the  function  of  the  Church  in  the  process  of 
salvation?  What  is  it  worth  to  a  man  to  have  the  sup- 
port and  guidance  of  the  Church  in  saving  his  soul? 

If  we  listen  to  the  Church's  own  estimate  of  itself  it  is 
worth  as  much  as  oxygen  is  to  animal  life.  It  is  indis- 
pensable. "  Outside  of  the  Church  there  is  no  salva- 
tion." Very  early  in  its  history  the  Church  began  to 
take  a  deep  interest  in  itself  and  to  assert  high  things 
about  itself.  Every  community  is  inclined  to  develop  an 
expanded  self-consciousness  if  the  opportunity  is  at  all 
favorable,  and  the  Christian  Church  has  certainly  not 
let  its  opportunity  go  begging.  Sqme  historian  has  said, 
it  is  a  wonder  that  the  Church  has  not  been  made  a  per- 
son in  the  Godhead.  ^ 

It  is  important  to  remember  that  when  its  high  claims 
were  first  developed,  they  were  really  largely  true. 
Christianity  was  in  sharp  opposition  not  only  to  the  State 
but  to  the  whole  social  life  surrounding  it.  It  created  a 
Christian  duplicate  of  the  social  order  for  its  members, 
as  far  as  it  could.  Christian  influences  were  not  yet 
diffused  in  society  and  literature.  The  Christian  spirit 
and  tradition  could  really  be  found  nowhere  except  in 
the  organized  Christian  groups.  If  the  individual  was 
ii8 


THE  CHURCH  AS  THE  SOCIAL  FACTOR  OF  SALVATION        1 19 

to  be  impregnated  with  the  saving  power  of  Christianity, 
the  Church  had  to  do  it.  There  was  actually  no  salvation 
outside  of  the  Church.  But  the  statements  in  which  men 
of  the  first  generations  expressed  their  genuine  experience 
of  what  the  Church  meant  to  them,  were  turned  into  a 
theological  formula  and  repeated  in  later  times  when  the 
situation  had  changed,  and  when,  for  a  time,  the  Church 
was  not  the  supreme  help  but  a  great  hindrance.  The 
claims  for  the  indispensability  of  the  Church  and  its  sac- 
raments and  officers  became  more  specific  as  the  hier- 
archic Church  developed.  First  no  man  could  be  saved  ' 
outside  of  the  Church;  next  he  could  not  be  saved  unless 
he  was  in  right  relation  to  his  bishop ;  and  finally  he  could 
not  be  saved  unless  he  submitted  to  the  Roman  pontiff.     ..--^ 

What  are  the  functions  of  the  Church  in  salvation,  and 
how  indispensable  is  it?     And  what  has  the  social  gospel  ..^ 
^to  say  to  the  theological  valuation  of  the  Church?  V 

X       The  Church  is  the  social  factor  in  salvation.     It  brings  S^  ^j 
f      social  forces  to  bear*  on  evil.     It  offers  Christ  not  only  f 
many  human  bodies  and  minds  to  serve  as  ministers  of ' 
his  salvation,  but  its  own  composite  personality,  with  a  \ 
I  collective  memory  stored  with  great  hymns  and  Bible  i 
\  stories  and  deeds  of  heroism,  with  trained  aesthetic  and  | 
moral  feelings,  and  with  a  collective  will  set  on  righteous-  | 
ness-XA  super-personal  being  organized  around  an  evil 
principle  and  set  on  predatory  aims  is  the  most  potent 
breeder  of  sin  in  individuals  and  in  other  communities. 
What,  then,  might  a  super-personal  being  do  which  would 
be  organized  around  Jesus  Christ  as  its  impelling  power, 
and  would  have  for  its  sole  or  chief  object  to  embody  his 


I20  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE   SOCIAL    GOSPEL 

Spirit  in  its  life  and  to  carry  him  into  human  thought  and 
the  conduct  of  affairs  ? 

If  there  had  never  been  such  an  organization  as  the 
Christian  Church,  every  great  reHgious  mind  would 
dream  of  the  possibility  of  creating  something  like  it. 
He  would  imagine  the  happy  life  within  it  where  men 
shared  the  impulses  of  love  and  the  convictions  about  life 
which  Jesus  imparted  to  humanity.  If  he  understood 
psychology  and  social  science,  he  would  see  the  possibili- 
ties of  such  a  social  group  in  arousing  and  guiding  the 
unformed  spiritual  aspirations  of  the  young  and  reinforc- 
ing wayward  consciences  by  the  approval  or  disapproval 
of  the  best  persons,  and  its  power  of  reaching  by  free 
loyalty  springs  of  action  and  character  lying  too  deep 
for  civil  law  and  even  for  education  to  stir.  He  might 
well  imagine  too  how  the  presence  of  such  a  social  group 
would  quicken  and  balance  the  civil  and  political  com- 
munity. 

How  far  the  actualities  of  church  life  fall  short  of 
such  an  ideal  forecast,  most  of  us  know  but  too  well. 
But  even  so,  the  importance  of  the  social  factor  in  salva- 
tion is  clear  from  whatever  angle  we  look  at  it.  What 
chance  would  a  disembodied  spirit  of  Christianity  have, 
whispering  occasionally  at  the  key -hole  of  the  human 
heart?  Nothing  lasts  unless  it  is  organized,  and  if  it 
is  organized  of  human  life,  we  must  put  up  with  the 
f|ualities  of  human  life  in  it. 

Within  the  field  it  has  chosen  to  cultivate,  the  local 
church  under  good  leadership  is  really  a  power  of  salva- 
tion. During  the  formative  years  of  our  national  growth 
the  churches  gathered  up  the  available  resources  of  edu- 


THE  CHURCH  AS  THE  SOCIAL  FACTOR  OF  SALVATION        121 

cation,  history,  philosophy,  eloquence,  art,  and  music,  and 
established  social  centres  controlled  by  the  highest  pos- 
sessions known  to  people  whose  other  resources  were  the 
family,  money,  gossip,  the  daily  paper,  and  the  inevitable 
vices.  The  great  ideas  of  the  spiritual  life  —  God,  the 
soul,  duty,  sin,  holiness,  eternity  —  would  today  be  wholly 
absent  in  many  minds,  and  in  most  others  would  be  but 
flickering  lights,  if  the  local  churches  did  not  cherish  and 
affirm  them,  and  make  them  glorious  and  persuasive  by 
the  most  effective  combination  of  social  influences  ever 
accumulated  by  any  organization  during  a  history  last- 
ing for  centuries  and  spread  through  many  nations. 

We  are  so  accustomed  to  the  churches  that  we  hardly 
realize  what  a  social  force  they  exert  over  the  minds  they 
do  influence.  If  we  could  observe  a  native  Christian 
church  in  a  pagan  people,  after  the  Christian  organization 
is  once  in  operation  as  a  social  organism,  and  is  weaning 
families  and  village  communities  from  pagan  customs 
and  assimilating  them  to  the  new  ideas,  we  should  realize 
better  the  power  of  conservation  exerted  in  our  own 
communities.^  The  new  religion  oi  Christian  Science 
provides  another  chance  for  such  a  realization.  It  ex- 
pounds a  new  religious  book  alongside  of  the  Bible,  and 
a  new  prophet  alongside  of  Christ,  and  thus  creates  a 
novel  religious  consciousness  among  its  own  people.  It 
has  taken  many  nervous,  unhappy,  and  burdened  persons, 
and  has  given  health  to  their  bodies  and  calmness  and 

1 "  Social  Christianity  in  the  Orient,"  by  Emma  Rauschenbusch 
Clough,  Ph.D.  rMacmillan  Company)  is  a  striking  narrative  of 
the  revolutionary  effect  of  the  introduction  of  Christianity  in  an 
Indian  pariah  tribe. 


122  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

self-control  to  their  minds  by  attacking  and  subduing 
their  souls  with  a  dogmatic  faith,  till  they  learn  to  con- 
tradict the  rheumatic  facts  of  life  and  to  ignore  even 
the  presence  of  death  by  looking  the  other  way.  If  we 
could  see  the  old  churches  as  clearly  as  we  see  this  new 
church,  we  should  realize  their  power. 
^-  The  men  who  stand  for  the  social  gospel  have  been 
among  the  most  active  critics  of  the  churches  because 
they  have  realized  most  clearly  both  the  great  needs  of 
our  social  life  and  the  potential  capacities  of  the  Church 
to  meet  them.  \Their  criticism  has  been  a  form  of  com- 
pliment to  the  Church.  I  think  they  may  yet  turn  out  to 
be  the  apologists  whom  the  Church  most  needs  at  present. 
They  are  best  fitted  to  see  that  while  the  Church  influ- 
ences society,  society  has  always  influenced  the  Church, 
and  that  the  Church,  when  it  has  dropped  to  the  level  of 
its  environment,  has  simply  yielded  to  the  law  of  social 
gravitation.  This  is  true  of  the  delinquencies  of  the 
Church  in  past  ages,  which  lie  heavily  on  our  minds  when 
we  want  to  describe  the  Church  as  the  great  organism  of 
salvation.  Those  whose  expectations  are  created  by  the 
claims  of  the  Church  about  itself  may.,well  be  profoundly 
disappointed  when  they  go  through  some  of  the  bad 
chapters  of  Church  History.  If  they  have  to  judge  it 
by  its  own  absolute  religious  criteria  as  the  body  of 
Christ  and  the  exponent  of  his  spirit,  the  gap  between 
the  ideal  and  the  reality  is  painful.  The  fact  is  that  the 
Church  has  watered  its  own  stock  and  can  not  pay  divi- 
dends on  all  the  paper  it  has  issued.  It  has  made  claims 
for  itself  to  which  no  organization  composed  of  humans 
can  live  up.     If  we  see  it  simply  as  an  attempt  to  give 


THE  CHURCH  AS  THE  SOCIAL  FACTOR  OF  SALVATION        I23 

social  expression  to  the  life  derived  from  Christ,  we  shall 
not  feel  too  deeply  disappointed  when  we  see  it  fail. 
True  social  insight  knows  that  its  sins  were  always  the 
sins  of  the  age.  If  the  Church  was  autocratic  and  op- 
pressive, so  were  all  governments.  There  was  graft  in 
the  Church,  but  the  feudal  aristocracy  was  founded  on 
graft,  and  it  never  fought  it  as  the  Church  fought  simony. 

)<^-'  A  fresh  understanding  for  the  indispensableness  of  the 
Church  is  gaining  ground  today  in  Protestant  theology  in 
spite  of  the  increased  knowledge  of  the  past  and  present 
failures  of  the  Church  A'' This  is  an  attempt  to  overcome 
the  exaggerated  indi\'idualism  into  which  Protestantism 
was  thrust  by  the  violent  reactions  of  the  Reformation. 
When  men  were  in  the  throes  of  a  revolution  against  a 
Church  which  claimed  everything,  they  naturally  denied 
every  claim  by  which  the  enemy  could  brace  its  authority. 
They  denied  the  authority  of  the  tradition  and  decrees  of 
the  Church  and  made  the  Bible  the  sole  source  of  truth. 
They  denied  the  doctrine  of  the  eucharist  because  the 
mass  was  the  chief  monopoly  right  from  which  the  Church 
drew  material  income  and  spiritual  reverence.  They  em- 
phasized and  elaborated  the  doctrine  of  election  because 
it  effectively  eliminated  the  middle-man  in  salvation ;  for 
it  put  man  into  direct  contact  with  the  source  of  salvation, 
and  made  the  decree  of  salvation  wholly  independent  of 
any  human  act  or  church  mediation.  But  the  result  of 
this  great  polemical  reaction  against  the  Church  was  a 
system  of  religious  individualism  in  which  the  social 
forces  of  salvation  were  slighted,  and  God  and  the  indi- 
vidual were  almost  the  only  realities  in  sight. 


124 


A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL 


Of  course  in  actual  practice  the  Protestant  churches 
exercised  very  stout  control  over  their  members.  Calvin, 
in  a  celebrated  passage  of  the  Institutes  comes  close  to  a 
social  appreciation  of  the  functions  of  the  Church: 

"  But,  as  it  is  now  our  purpose  to  discourse  of  the  visible 
Church,  let  us  learn,  from  her  single  title  of  Mother,  how  use- 
ful, nay,  how  necessary  the  knowledge  of  her  is,  since  there  is 
no  other  means  of  entering  into  life  unless  she  conceive  us  in 
the  womb  and  give  us  birth,  unless  she  nourish  us  at  her  breasts, 
and,  in  short,  keep  us  under  her  charge  and  government,  until, 
divested  of  mortal  flesh,  we  become  hke  the  angels. —  Moreover, 
beyond  the  pale  of  the  Church  no  forgiveness  of  sins,  no  salva« 
tion,  can  be  hoped  for,  as  Isaiah  and  Joel  testify. —  The  paternal 
favour  of  God  and  the  special  evidence  of  spiritual  life  are  con- 
fined to  his  peculiar  people,  and  hence  the  abandonment  of  the 
Church  is  always  fatal."  ^ 

But  all  of  us  who  have  had  to  acquire  our  social  and 
historical  comprehension  laboriously  will  appreciate  how 
little  the  old  Protestant  system  stimulated  and  developed 
the  understanding  of  the  social  factor  in  redemption. 

The  individualism  of  Reformation  theology  is  being 
overcome  by  a  new  insistence  on  the  Importance  of  the 
Church.  This  trend  of  thought  is  not  due,  as  in  Anglican 
theology,  to  a  renascence  of  Catholicism,  but  to  a  com- 
bination of  purified  Protestantism  and  modern  social  in- 
sight. I  have  been  struck  by  the  eminence  of  some  of 
the  prophets  of  this  new  solidaristic  strain  in  theology. 

Schleiermacher  in  his  earlier  "  Reden  iiber  die  Re- 
ligion"  still  interpreted  the  religious  sense  of  depend- 
ence as  an  individual  experience.  Maturer  reflection 
showed  him  that  all  personal  life  Is  determined  by  the 
spirit  of  the  community  with  which  it  is  organically  con- 

1  Calvin,  "  Institutes  of  the  Christian  Religion,"  Book  IV,  i,  4. 


THE  CHURCH  AS  THE  SOCIAL  FACTOR  OF  SALVATION        1 25 

nected.  This  is  true  of  the  religious  life  too.  Our  sin 
is  due  to  the  feebleness  with  which  we  realize  God.  Jesus 
lived  in  complete  and  unbroken  consciousness  of  God. 
Contact  with  him  can  so  strengthen  the  God-consciousness 
in  us  that  we  are  able  to  overcome  the  power  of  sin  and 
rise  to  newness  of  life.  But  the  memory  of  his  life  and 
the  consciousness  of  salvation  in  him  are  transmitted  to 
us  only  by  the  Church.  We  share  his  consciousness  by 
sharing  the  common  faith  and  experience  of  the  Church. 
The  new  life  of  the  individual  is  mediated  by  the  social 
organism  w^hich  is  already  in  possession  of  that  life. 

"  The  Protestant  theology  of  our  age  rests  on  the  foun- 
dation laid  by  Schleiermacher;  all  theologians  —  some 
directly,  some  more  indirectly  • —  are  seeking  to  establish 
the  connections  between  the  religious  personality  of  the 
individual  and  the  common  consciousness  of  the 
Church."  ^ 

Ritschl,  the  most  vigorous  and  influential  theological 
intellect  in  Germany  since  Schleiermacher,  is  evidence  of 
this.  He  abandoned  the  doctrine  of  original  sin  but 
substituted  the  solidaristic  conception  of  the  Kingdom 
of  Evil.  He  held  that  salvation  is  embodied  in  a  com- 
munity which  has  experienced  salvation ;  the  faith,  of 
the  individual  is  part  of  the  faith  of  the  Church.  )<  The 
Church  and  not  the  individual  is  the  object  of  justifica- 
tion; the  assurance  of  forgiveness  for  the  individual  is 
based  on  his  union  with  the  Church.      >^ 

In  American  thought  the  most  striking  utterance  on 
the  indispensable  importance  of  the  Church  in  salvation 

1  Pfleiderer,  Glaubens-imd  Sittenlehre.    §  55. 


126  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

has  come  from  an  eminent  outsider,  a  philosopher  and 
;not  a  theologian,  Professor  Royce.  He  had  worked  out 
I"  the  philosophy  of  loyalty"  iiT  other  fields,  and  then 
applied  it  to  religion  in  "  the  Problem  of  Christianity  " 

_( 19 13  )  •  This  book  is  the  mature  product  of  his  life,  and 
its  argument  is  evidently  uplifted  by  the  conviction  that 
he  had  discovered  some  highly  important  facts. 

Professor  Royce,  as  has  been  said  before,  held  that 
there  are  in  the  human  world  two  profoundly  different 
grades  or  levels  of  mental  beings,  namely  individuals  and 
communities,  and  he  calls  it  the  most  significant  of  all 
moral  and  religious  truths  "  that  a  community,  when  uni- 
fied by  an  active,  indwelling  purpose,  is  an  entity  more 
concrete  and  less  mysterious  than  any  individual  man, 
and  can  love  and  be  loved  as  a  husband  and  wife  love." 
What  is  love  between  man  and  man,  becomes  loyalty 
when  it  goes  out  from  a  man  to  his  community. 

^  Professor  Royce  felt  profoundly  on  the  sin  of  the  in- 
dividual. "  The  individual  human  being  is  by  nature 
subject  to  some  overwhelming  moral  burden,  from 
which,  if  unaided,  he  can  not  escape.  Both  because  of 
what  has  been  technically  called  original  sin,  and  because 
of  the  sins  that  he  himself  has  committed,  the  individual 
is  doomed  to  a  spiritual  ruin  from  which  only  a  divine 
intervention  can  save  him."  (Lecture  III.)  He  "can- 
not unaided  win  the  true  goal  of  life.  Help  must  come 
to  him  from  some  source  above  his  own  level." 

The  individual  is  saved,  if  at  all,  by  membership  in  a  \ 
community  which  has  salvation.  When  a  man  becomes  ) 
loyal  to  a  community,  he  identifies  himself  with  its  life;  ' 
he  appropriates  its  past  history  and  memories,  its  experi- 


THE  CHURCH  AS  THE  SOCIAL  FACTOR  OF  SALVATION       12/ 

ences  and  hopes,  and  absorbs  its  spirit  and  faith.     ThIs; 
is  the  power  which  can  Hft  him  above  his  own  level. 

The  Christian  religion  possesses  such  a  community. 
It  first  comes  into  full  view  in  the  Pauline  epistles.     How 
it  originated  is  a  mystery  like  the  origin  of  life,  for  loy- 
alty is  always  evoked  by  the  loyalty  of  those  who  already 
have  it.     Paul  did  not  create  it;  he  only  formulated  its 
ideas. 
X     Professor  Royce  thinks  the  creation  of  the  Church  was  j  , 
the  most  important  event  in  the  history  of  Christianity.!'      J 
Not  Christ  but  the  Church  is  the  central  idea  of  Chris-  i  >/ 
tianity^;'  He  rates  Jesus  largely  as  an  indispensable  basis/' 
on  which  the  Church  could  form  and  stand.     He  thinks  f 
we  know  little  about  him,  and  that  Jesus  defined  the 
Christian   ideas   inadequately.     But  his   name  was   the 
great  symbol  of  loyalty  for  the  Church.     The  doctrines 
about  him  were  developed  because  they  were  necessary 
for  the  consolidation  of  the  Church. 

This  slighting  of  Jesus. is  one  of  the  most  unsatisfac- 
tory elements  in  Royce's  thought.     If  the  awakening  of 
loyalty  is  "  a  spiritual  triumph  beyond  the  wit  of  man;" 
if  "  you  are  first  made  loyal  through  the  power  of  some 
one  else  who  is  loyal ";  if  "  no  social  will  can  make  the 
community   lovable   unless    loyalty   is   previously   effec- 
tive" ;  then  the  origin  of  "the  beloved  community"  is 
the  great  problem  in  the  history  of   Christianity,   and 
everything  points  to  Jesus  as  the  only  solution.     He  per- 
formed the  miracle  of  the  origin  of  life.     A  proper  evalu-    j    .^^ 
ation  of  Jesus  as  the  initiator  would  have  been  the  natural ,  ;  'A 
and  necessary  consummation  of  this  entire  doctrine  oQ  l^ 
salvation  by  loyalty. 


128  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

A  tacit  condition  is  attached  to  all  the  high  claims 
made  by  Professor  Royce  and  others  on  behalf  of  the 
Church:  If  the  Church  is  to  have  saving  pow^r,  it  must 
embody  Christ.  He  is  the  revolutionary  force  within  it. 
The  saving  qualities  of  the  Church  depend  on  the  question 
! whether  it  has  translated  the  personal  life  of  Jesus  Christ 
;into  the  social  life  of  its  group  and  thus  brings  it  to  bearj 
'on  the  individual.  If  Christ  is  not  in  the  Church,  howj 
does  it  differ  from  "  the  world  "  ?  It  will  still  assimilate 
its  members,  but  it  will  not  make  them  persons  bearing 
the  family  likeness  of  the  first-born  son  of  God. 

Wherever  the  Church  has  lost  the  saving  influence  ofj 
Christ,  it  has  lost  its  saltness  and  is  a  tasteless  historicall 
survival.  Therewith  all  theological  doctrines  about  it' 
become  untrue.  Antiquity  and  continuity  are  no  sub- 
stitute for  the  vitality  of  the  Christ-spirit.  Age,  instead 
of  being  a  presumption  in  favor  of  a  religious  body,  is  a 
question-mark  set  over  against  its  name.  The  world 
is  full  of  stale  religion.  It  is  historically  self-evident 
that  church  bodies  do  lose  the  saving  power.  In  fact, 
they  may  become  social  agencies  to  keep  their  people 
stupid,  stationary,  superstitious,  bigotted,  and  ready  to 
choke  their  first-born  ideals  and  instincts  as  a  sacrifice  to 
the  God  of  stationaryness  whom  their  religious  guides 
have  imposed  on  them.  Wherever  an  aged  and  proud 
Church  sets  up  high  claims  as  an  indispensable  institution 
of  salvation,  let  it  be  tested  by  the  cleanliness,  education, 
and  moral  elasticity  of  the  agricultural  labourers  whom 
it  has  long  controlled,  or  of  the  slum  dwellers  who  have 
long  ago  slipped  out  of  its  control. 


THE  CHURCH  AS  THE  SOCIAL  FACTOR  OF  SALVATION       I29 

This  conditional  form  of  predicating  the  saving  power 
and  spiritual  authority  of  the  Church  is  only  one  more 
way  of  asserting  that  in  anything  which  claims  to  be 
Christian,  religion  must  have  an  immediate  ethical  nexus 
and  effect.  This  marks  an  essential  difference  between 
the  claims  made  for  the  Church  in  Catholic  theology, 
and  the  emphasis  on  the  functions  of  the  Church  made 
in  the  social  gospel.  The  Catholic  doctrine  of  the  Church 
made  its  holiness,  its  power  to  forgive  sin,  and  the  effi- 
cacy of  its  sacraments  independent  of  the  moral  char- 
acter of  its  priests  and  people ;  the  social  conception  makes 
everything  conditional  on  the  spiritual  virtues  of  the 
church  group.  The  Catholic  conception  stakes  the  claims 
of  the  Church  and  its  clergy  on  the  due  legal  succession 
and  canonical  ordination  of  its  chief  officers.  This  im- 
ports legal  conceptions  derived  from  the  imperial  Roman 
bureaucracy  into  the  organism  of  the  Christian  Church, 
which  has  nothing  to  do  with  any  bureaucracy.  It  gives 
an  unquestioned  status  to  some  corrupt,  venal,  or  ignorant 
bishop  in  Southern  Italy;  m^akes  the  ecclesiastical  validity 
of  the  entire  Anglican  clergy  dubious;  and  denies  all 
standing  to  Chalmers,  Spurgeon,  or  Asbury.  The  social 
gospel,  on  the  other  hand,  tests  the  claims  and  powers 
of  any  Church  by  the  continuity  of  the  apostolic  faith 
within  it  and  by  its  possession  of  the  law  and  spirit  of 

*    Jesus. 

)-.'  The  saving  power  of  the  Church  does  not  rest  on  its 
institutional  character,  on  its  continuity,  its  ordination, 
its  ministry,  or  its  doctrine.  It  rests  on  the  presence  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God  within  her.  .VThe  Church  grows 


M 


130  A    THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

old ;  the  Kingdom  is  ever  young.     The  Church  is  a  per- 
petuation of  the  past;  the  Kingdom  is  the  power  of  the 
.  coming  age.     Unless  the  Church  is  vitalized  by  the  ever 
\  nascent  forces  of  the  Kingdom  within  her,  she  deadens 
Hnstead  of  begetting. 


IH^ 


.-■^    CHAPTER  XIII 

THE    KINGDOM    OF   GOD^J"' 

If  theology  is  to  offer  an  adequate  doctrinal  basis  for 
the  social  gospel,  it  must  not  only  make  room  for  the 
doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  but  give  it  a  central 
place  and  revise  all  other  doctrines  so  that  they  will  ar- 
ticulate organically  with  it. 

\  This  doctrine  is  itself  the  social  gospel.  Without  it, 
the  idea  of  redeeming  the  social  order  will  be  but  an 
annex  to  the  orthodox  conception  of  the  scheme  of  sal- 
vation. V  It  will  live  like  a  negro  servant  family  in  a  de- 
tached cabin  back  of  the  white  man's  house  in  the  South. 
If  this  doctrine  gets  the  place  which  has  always  been  its 
legitimate  right,  the  practical  proclamation  and  applica- 
tion of  social  morality  will  have  a  firm  footing. 
);^  To  those  whose  minds  live  in  the  social  gospel,  the 
Kingdom  of  God  is  a  dear  truth,  the  marrow  of  the  gos- 
pel, just  as  the  incarnation  was  to  Athanasius,  justifica- 
tion by  faith  alone  to  Luther,  and  the  sovereignty  of 
God  to  Jonathan  Edwards./C  It  was  just  as  dear  to  Jesus. 
He  too  lived  in  it,  and  from  it  looked  out  on  the  world 
and  the  work  he  had  to  do. 

Jesus  always  spoke  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Only 
two  of  his  reported  sayings  contain  the  word  "  Church," 
and  both  passages  are  of  questionable  authenticity.  It 
is  safe  to  say  that  he  never  thought  of  founding  the  kind 


132  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE   SOCIAL    GOSPEL 

of  institution  which  afterward  claimed  to  be  acting  for 
him. 

Yet  immediately  after  his  death,  groups  of  disciples 
joined  and  consolidated  by  inward  necessity.  Each  local 
group  knew  that  it  was  part  of  a  divinely  founded  fel- 
lowship mysteriously  spreading  through  humanity,  and 
awaiting  the  return  of  the  Lord  and  the  establishing  of 
his  Kingdom.  This  universal  Church  was  loved  with 
the  same  religious  faith  and  reverence  with  which  Jesus 
had  loved  the  Kingdom  of  God.  It  was  the  partial  and 
earthly  realization  of  the  divine  Society,  and  at  the  Pa- 
rousia  the  Church  and  the  Kingdom  would  merge. 

But  the  Kingdom  was  merely  a  hope,  the  Church  a 
present  reality.     The  chief  interest  and  affection  flowed 
toward  the  Church.     Soon,  through  a  combination  of 
^  causes,  the  name  and  idea  of  "  the  Kingdom  "  began  to 
be  displaced  by  the  name  and  idea  of  "  the  Church  "  in 
the  preaching,  literature,  and  theological  thought  of  the 
I  Church.     Augustine  completed  this  process  in   his  De 
f  Civitate  Dei.     The  Kingdom  of  God  which  has,  through- 
I  out  human  history,  opposed  the  Kingdom  of  Sin,  is  to- 
I  day  embodied  in  the  Church.     The  millennium  began 
when  the  Church  was  founded.     This  practically  substi- 
tuted the  actual,  not  the  ideal  Church  for  the  Kingdom 
of  God.     The  beloved  ideal  of  Jesus  became  a  vague 
phrase  which  kept  intruding  from  the  New  Testament. 
Like  Cinderella  in  the  kitchen,  it  saw  the  other  great 
dogmas  furbished  up  for  the  ball,  but  no  prince  of  theol- 
ogy restored  it  to  its  rightful  place.     The  Reformation, 
too,  brought  no  renascence  of  the  doctrine  of  the  King- 
dom; it  had  only  eschatological  value,  or  was  defined  in 


TF  1.    KINGDOM    OF   GOD  133 

blurred  phrases  borrowed  from  the  Church.  The  pres- 
ent revival  of  the  Kingdom  idea  is  due  to  the  combined 
influence  of  the  historical  study  of  the  Bible  and  of  the 
social  gospel. 

When  the  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  shriveled  ■ 
to  an  undeveloped  and  pathetic  remnant   in   Christian;  ..' 
thought,  this  loss  was  bound  to  have  far-reaching  con-  .      - 
sequences.     We  are  told  that  the  loss  of  a  single  tooth  - 
from  the  arch  of  the  mouth  in  childhood  may  spoil  the 
symmetrical  development  of  the  skull  and  produce  mal- 
formations   affecting    the    mind    and    character.     The 
atrophy  of  that  idea  which  had  occupied  the  chief  place 
in  the  mind  of  Jesus,  necessarily  affected  the  conception 
of  Christianity,  the  life  of  the  Church,  the  progress  of 
humanity,  and  the  structure  of  theology.     I  shall  briefly/ 
enumerate  some  of  the  consequences  affecting  theology./ 
This  list,  however,  is  by  no  means  complete.  ."^^ 

I.  Theology  lost  its  contact  with  the  synoptic  thought .^^''.^  '■' 
of  Jesus.  Its  problems  were  not  at  all  the  same  which 
had  occupied  his  mind.  It  lost  his  point  of  view  and 
became  to  some  extent  incapable  of  understanding  him. 
His  ideas  had  to  be  rediscovered  ih'o'ur  time.  Tradi- 
tional theology  and  the  mind  of  Jesus  Christ  became  in- 
commensurable quantities.  It  claimed  to  regard  his  reve- 
lation and  the  substance  of  his  thought  as  divine,  and 
yet  did  not  learn  to  think  like  him.  The  loss  of  the  King- 
dom idea  is  one  key  to  this  situation. 

2.  The  distinctive  ethical  principles  of  Jesus  were  the  *" 
direct  outgrowth  of  his  conception  of  the  Kingdom  of        .":; 
God.     When  the  latter  disappeared  from  theology,  the 


134  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE    SOLJAL    GOSPEL 

former  disappeared  from  ethics.  Only  persons  having 
the  substance  of  the  Kingdom  ideal  in  their  minds,  seem 
to  be  able  to  get  relish  out  of  the  ethics  of  Jesus.  Only 
those  church  bodies  which  have  been  in  opposition  to 
organized  society  and  have  looked  for  a  better  city 
with  its  foundations  in  heaven,  have  taken  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  seriously. 

^ '    3.  The  Church  is  primarily  a  fellowship  for  worship ;  - 
'J the  Kingdom  is  a  fellowship  of  righteousness.     When 

^  the  latter  was  neglected  in  theology,  the  ethical  force  of 
Christianity  was  weakened;  when  the  former  was  em- 
phasized in  theology,  the  importance  of  worship  was  ex-^ 
aggerated.  The  prophets  and  Jesus  had  cried  down  sac- 
rifices and  ceremonial  performances,  and  cried  up  right- 
eousness, mercy,  solidarity.  Theology  now  reversed 
this,  and  by  its  theoretical  discussions  did  its  best  to 
stimulate  sacramental  actions  and  priestly  importance. 
Thus  the  religious  energy  and  enthusiasm  which  might 
have  saved  mankind  from  its  great  sins,  were  used  up  in 
hearing  and  endowing  masses,  or  in  maintaining  competi- 
tive church  organizations,  while  mankind  is  still  stuck  in 
the  mud.  There  are  nations  in  which  the  ethical  condi- 
tion of  the  masses  is  the  reverse  of  the  frequency  of  the 
masses  in  the  churches. 

4.  When  the  Kingdom  ceased  to  be  the  dominating 
religious  reality,  the  Church  moved  up  into  the  position 
of  the  supreme  good.  To  promote  the  power  of  the 
Church  and  its  control  over  all  rival  political  forces  was 
equivalent  to  promoting  the  supreme  ends  of  Christian- 
ity. This  increased  the  arrogance  of  churchmen  and 
took  the  moral  check  off  their  policies.     For  the  King- 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    GOD  I35 

dom  of  God  can  never  be  promoted  by  lies,  craft,  crime 
or  war,  but  the  wealth  and  power  of  the  Church  have 
often  been  promoted  by  these  means.  The  medieval 
ideal  of  the  supremacy  of  the  Church  over  the  State  was 
the  logical  consequence  of  making  the  Church  the  highest 
good  with  no  superior  ethical  standard  by  which  to  test 
it.  The  medieval  doctrines  concerning  the  Church  and 
the  Papacy  were  the  direct  theological  outcome  of  the 
struggles  for  Church  supremacy,  and  were  meant  to  be 
weapons  in  that  struggle. 

5.  The  Kingdom  ideal  is  the  test  and  corrective  of  the 
influence  of  the  Church.  When  the  Kingdom  ideal  disap- 
peared, the  conscience  of  the  Church  was  muffled.  It  be- 
came possible  for  the  missionary  expansion  of  Chris- 
tianity to  halt  for  centuries  without  creating  any  sense 
of  shortcoming.  It  became  possible  for  the  most  unjust 
social  conditions  to  fasten  themselves  on  Christian  na- 
tions without  awakening  any  consciousness  that  the  pur- 
pose of  Christ  was  being  defied  and  beaten  back.  The 
practical  undertakings  of  the  Church  remained  within 
narrow  lines,  and  the  theological  thought  of  the  Church 
was  necessarily  confined  in  a  similar  way.  The  claims 
of  the  Church  were  allowed  to  stand  in  theology  with  no 
conditions  and  obligations  to  test  and  balance  them.  If 
the  Kingdom  had  stood  as  the  purpose  for  which  the 
Church  exists,  the  Church  could  not  have  fallen  into 
such  corruption  and  sloth.  Theology  bears  part  of  the 
guilt  for  the  pride,  the  greed,  and  the  ambition  of  the 
Church. 

6.  The  Kingdom  ideal  contains  the  revolutionary 
force   of   Christianity.     When   this   ideal    faded   out   of 


136  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

the  systematic  thought  of  the  Church,  it  became  a  con- 
servative social  influence  and  increased  the  weight  of 
the  other  stationary  forces  in  society.  If  the  Kingdom 
of  God  had  remained  part  of  the  theological  and  Chris- 
tian consciousness,  the  Church  could  not,  down  to  our 
times,  have  been  salaried  by  autocratic  class  governments 
to  keep  the  democratic  and  economic  impulses  of  the  peo- 
ple under  check. 

7.  Reversely,  the  movements  for  democracy  and  social 
justice  were  left  without  a  religious  backing  for  lack  of 
the  Kingdom  idea.  The  Kingdom  of  God  as  the  fellow- 
ship of  righteousness,  would  be  advanced  by  the  aboli- 
tion of  industrial  slavery  and  the  disappearance  of  the 
slums  of  civilization;  the  Church  would  only  indirectly 
gain  through  such  social  changes.  Even  today  many 
Christians  can  not  see  any  religious  importance  in  social 
justice  and  fraternity  because  it  does  not  increase  the 
number  of  conversions  nor  fill  the  churches.  Thus  the 
practical  conception  of  salvation,  which  is  the  effective 
theology  of  the  common  man  and  minister,  has  been  cut 
back  and  crippled  for  lack  of  the  Kingdom  ideal. 

8.  Secular  life  is  belittled  as  compared  with  church 
life.  Services  rendered  to  the  Church  get  a  higher  relig- 
ious rating  than  services  rendered  to  the  community.^ 
Thus  the  religious  value  is  taken  out  of  the  activities  of 
the  common  man  and  the  prophetic  services  to  society. 
Wherever  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  a  living  reality  in 

1  After  the  death  of  Susan  B.  Anthony  a  minister  commented 
on  her  life,  regretting  that  she  was  not  orthodox  in  her  beliefs.  In 
the  same  address  he  spoke  glowingly  about  a  new  linoleum  laid  in 
the  church  kitchen. 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    GOD  I37 

Christian  thought,  any  advance  of  social  righteousness  is 
seen  as  a  part  of  redemption  and  arouses  inward  joy  and 
the  triumphant  sense  of  salvation.  When  the  Church  ab- 
sorbs interest,  a  subtle  asceticism  creeps  back  into  our 
theology  and  the  world  looks  different. 

9.  When  the  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  lack-l 
ing  in  theology,  the  salvation  of  the  individual  is  seen  in 
its  relation  to  the  Church  and  to  the  future  life,  but  not 
in  Its  relation  to  the  task  of  saving  the  social  order.' 
Theology  has  left  this  important  point  in  a  condition  so 
hazy  and  muddled  that  it  has  taken  us  almost  a  generation 
to  see  that  the  salvation  of  the  individual  and  the  redemp- 
tion of  the  social  order  are  closely  related,-and  h^ml 

ID.  Finally,  theology  has  been  deprived  of  the  Inspi- 
ration of  great  ideas  contained  in  the  idea  of  the  King- 
dom and  in  labor  for  it.  The  Kingdom  of  God  breeds! 
prophets;  the  Church  breeds  priests  and  theologians. 
The  Church  runs  to  tradition  and  dogma ;  the  Kingdom 
of  God  rejoices  in  forecasts  and  boundless  horizons. 
The  men  who  have  contributed  the  most  fruitful  im- 
pulses to  Christian  thought  have  been  men  of  prophetic 
vision,  and  their  theology  has  proved  most  effective  for 
future  times  where  it  has  been  most  concerned  with  past 
history,  with  present  social  problems,  and  with  the  future 
of  human  society.  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  to  theology 
what  outdoor  colour  and  light  are  to  art.  It  is  impossible 
to  estimate  what  inspirational  impulses  have  been  lost  to 
theology  and  to  the  Church,  because  it  did  not  develop 
the  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  see  the  world 
and  its  redemption  from  that  point  of  view. 


138  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

These  are  some  of  the  historical  effects  which  the 
loss  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  has  inflicted 
on  systematic  theology.  The  chief  contribution  which 
the  social  gospel  has  made  and  will  make  to  theology  is 
to  give  new  vitality  and  importance  to  that  doctrine.  In 
doing  so  it  will  be  a  reformatory  force  of  the  highest  im- 
portance in  the  field  of  doctrinal  theology,  for  any  sys- 
tematic conception  of  Christianity  must  be  not  only 
defective  but  incorrect  if  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  does  not  govern  it. 

The  restoration  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  has 
already  made  progress.  Some  of  the  ablest  and  most 
voluminous  works  of  the  old  theology  in  their  thousands 
of  pages  gave  the  Kingdom  of  God  but  a  scanty  men- 
tion, usually  in  connection  with  eschatology,  and  saw  no 
connection  between  it  and  the  Calvinistic  doctrines  of 
personal  redemption.  The  newer  manuals  not  only  make 
constant  reference  to  it  in  connection  with  various  doc- 
trines, but  they  arrange  their  entire  subject  matter  so 
that  the  Kingdom  of  God  becomes  the  governing  idea.  ^ 

1  William  Adams  Brown,  "  Christian  Theology  in  Outline,"  p.  192 : 
"  We  are  witnessing  to-day  a  reaction  against  this  exaggerated 
individualism  (of  Reformation  theology).  It  has  become  an  axiom 
of  modern  thought  that  the  government  of  God  has  social  as  well 
as  individual  significance,  and  the  conception  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  — obscured  in  the  earHer  Protestantism  — is  coming  again 
into  the  forefront  of  theological  thought."  See  the  discussion  on 
"  The  View  of  the  Kingdom  in  Modern  Thought "  which  follows. 

Albrecht  Ritschl,  in  his  great  monograph  on  Justification  and 
Reconciliation,  begins  the  discussion  of  his  own  views  in  Volume 
III  (§2)  by  insisting  that  personal  salvation  .must  be  organically 
connected  with  the  Kingdom  of  God.  He  says  ("  Rechtfertigung 
und  Versohnung,"  III,  p.  in):  "Theology  has  taken  a  very  un- 
equal interest  in  the  two  chief  characteristics  of  Christianity. 
Everything  pertaining  to  its  character  as  the  redemption  of  men 


THE    KINGDOM    OF   GOD  I39 

In  the  following  brief  propositions  I  should  like  to 
offer  a  few  suggestions,  on  behalf  of  the  social  gospel, 
for  the  theological  formulation  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Kingdom.     Something  like  this  is  needed  to  give  us  "  a 
theology  for  the  social  gospel." 
A      I.  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  divine  in  its  origin,  prog- 
;  ress  and  consummation.     It  was  initiated  by  Jesus  Christ, 
!  in  whom  the  prophetic  spirit  came  to  its  consummation, 
I  it  is  sustained  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  it  will  be  brought 
\  to  its  fulfilment  by  the  power  of  God  in  his  own  time.     \ 
The  passive  and  active  resistance  of  the  Kingdom  of  Evil  '^^ 
at  every  stage  of  its  advance  is  so  great,  and  the  human  • 
resources  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  so  slender,  that  no  ex- 
planation can  satisfy  a  religious  mind  which  does  not  see 
the  power  of  God  in  its  movements.).  The  Kingdom  of 
God,  therefore,  is  miraculous  all  the  way,  and  is  the  con-\ 
tinuous  revelation  of  the  power,  the  righteousness,  and-' 
the  love  of  God.  iThe  establishment  of  a  community  of 

has  been  made  the  subject  of  the  most  minute  consideration;  con- 
sequently redemption  by  Christ  has  been  taken  as  the  centre  of  all 
Christian  knowledge  and  life,  whereas  the  ethical  conception  of 
Christianity  contained  in  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  has  been 
slighted.  ...  It  has  been  fatal  for  Protestantism  that  the  Reformers 
did  not  cleanse  the  idea  of  the  ethical  Kingdom  of  God  or  Christ 
from  Its  hierarchical  corruption  (i.e.  the  idea  that  the  visible 
Church  IS  identical  with  the  Kingdom),  but  worked  out  the  idea 
only  in  an  academic  and  unpractical  form."  Kant  first  recognized  '= 
the  importance  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  for  ethics.  Schleiermacher ' 
first  applied  the  ideological  quality  of  Christianity  to  the  definition 
of  its  nature,  but  he  still  treated  now  of  personal  redemption  and 
now  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  without  adequately  working  out  their' 
connection.  Ritschl  has  done  more  than  any  one  else  to  put  the 
idea  to  the  front  in  German  theology,  but  he  does  not  get  beyond 
a  few  great  general  ideas.  He  was  born  too  early  to  get  sociolog- 
ical ideas. 


140  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

righteousness  in  mankind  is  just  as  much  a  saving  act 
of  God  as  the  salvation  of  an  individual  from  his  natural 
selfishness  and  moral  inability.  The  Kingdom  of  God, 
therefore,  is  not  merely  ethical,  but  has  a  rightful  place 
in  theology.  This  doctrine  is  absolutely  necessary  to 
establish  that  organic  union  between  religion  and  moral- 
ity, between  theology  and  ethics,  which  is  one  of  the  char- 
acteristics of  the  Christian  religion.  When  our  moral 
actions  are  consciously  related  to  the  Kingdom  of  God 
they  gain  religious  quality.  Without  this  doctrine  we 
shall  have  expositions  of  schemes  of  redemption  and  we 
shall  have  systems  of  ethics,  but  we  shall  not  have  a  true 
exposition  of  Christianity.  The  first  step  to  the  reform 
of  the  Churches  is  the  restoration  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God. 

2.  The  Kingdom  of  God  contains  the  teleology  of  the 
Christian  religion.  It  translates  theology  from  the  static 
to  the  dynamic.v  It  sees,  not  doctrines  or  rites  to  be  con- 
served and  perpetuated,  but  resistance  to  be  overcome 
and  great  ends  to  be  achieved.  Since  the  Kingdom  of 
God  is  the  supreme  purpose  of  God,  we  shall  understand 
the  Kingdom  so  far  as  we  understand  God,  and  we  shall 
understand  God  so  far  as  we  understand  his  Kingdom. 
As  long  as  organized  sin  is  in  the  world,  the  Kingdom  of 
God  is  characterized  by  conflict  with  evil.  But  if  there 
were  no  evil,  or  after  evil  has  been  overcome,  the  King- 
dom of  God  will  still  be  the  end  to  which  God  is  lifting 
the  race.  It  is  realized  not  only  by  redemption,  but  also 
by  the  education  of  mankind  and  the  revelation  of  his 
life  within  it. 

3.  Since  God  is  in  it,  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  always 


THE    KINGDOM    OF   GOD  I4I 

both  present  and  future.X  Like  God  it  is  in  all  tenses,  i 
eternal  in  the  midst  of  time.VIt  is  the  energy  of  God 
realizing  itself  in  human  life.  Its  future  lies  among 
the  mysteries  of  God.  It  invites  and  justifies  prophecy, 
but  all  prophecy  is  fallible ;  it  is  valuable  in  so  far  as  it 
grows  out  of  action  for  the  Kingdom  and  impels  action. 
No  theories  about  the  future  of  the  Kingdom  of  God 
are  likely  to  be  valuable  or  true  which  paralyze  or  post- 
pone redemptive  action  on  our  part.  To  those  who  post- 
pone, it  is  a  theory  and  not  a  reality.  It  is  for  us  to  see 
the  Kingdom  of  God  as  always  coming,  always  pressing 
in  on  the  present,  always  big  with  possibility,  and  always 
inviting  immediate  action.  We  walk  by  faith.  Every 
human  life  is  so  placed  that  it  can  share  with  God  in  the 
creation  of  the  Kingdom,  or  can  resist  and  retard  its 
progress.  The  Kingdom  is  for  each  of  us  the  supreme 
task  and  the  supreme  gift  of  God.  By  accepting  it  as  a 
task,  we  experience  it  as  a  gift.  By  labouring  for  it  we 
enter  into  the  joy  and  peace  of  the  Kingdom  as  our  divine 
fatherland  and  habitation. 

)(  4.  Even  before  Christ,  men  of  God  saw  the  Kingdom 
''  of  God  as  the  great  end  to  which  all  divine  leadings  were 
ipointingV  Every  idealistic  interpretation  of  the  world, 
religious  or  philosophical,  needs  some  such  conception. 
Within  the  Christian  religion  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom 
gets  its  distinctive  interpretation  from  Christ,  (a)  Je- 
sus emancipated  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom  from  previous 
nationalistic  limitations  and  from  the  debasement  of 
lower  religious  tendencies,  and  made  it  world-wide  and 
spiritual,  (b)  He  made  the  purpose  of  salvation  essen- 
tial in  it.      (c)   He  imposed  his  own  mind,  his  personality, 


142  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

his  love  and  holy  will  on  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom,  (d) 
He  not  only  foretold  it  but  initiated  it  by  his  life  and 
work.  As  humanity  more  and  more  develops  a  racial 
consciousness  in  modern  life,  idealistic  interpretations  of 
the  destiny  of  humanity  will  become  more  influential  and 
important.  Unless  theology  has  a  solidaristic  vision 
higher  and  fuller  than  any  other,  it  can  not  maintain  the 
spiritual  leadership  of  mankind,  but  will  be  outdistanced. 
Its  business  is  to  infuse  the  distinctive  qualities  of  Jesus 
Christ  into  its  teachings  about  the  Kingdom,  and  this  will 
be  a  fresh  competitive  test  of  his  continued  headship  of 
humanity. 

V  5.  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  humanity  organized  accord- 
ing to  the  will  of  God.  yinterpreting  it  through  the  con- 
sciousness of  Jesus  we  may  affirm  these  convictions  about 
the  ethical   relations   within   the    Kingdom:    (a)   Since 
Christ  revealed  the  divine  worth  of  life  and  personality, 
and  since  his  salvation  seeks  the  restoration  and  fulfil- 
l  ment  of  even  the  least,  it  follows  that  the  Kingdom  of 
'  God,  at  every  stage  of  human  development,  tends  toward 
a  social  order  which  will  best  guarantee  to  all  personali- 
ties their  freest  and  highest  development.     This  involves 
:  the  redemption  of  social  life  from  the  cramping  influence 
;  of  religious  bigotry,  from  the  repression  of  self-assertion 
I  in  the  relation  of  upper  and  lower  classes,  and  from  all 
*  forms  of  slavery  in  which  human  beings  are  treated  as 
{  mere  means  to  serve  the  ends  of  others,     (b)   Since  love 
is  the  supreme  law  of  Christ,  the  Kingdom  of  God  im- 
plies a  progressive  reign  of  love  in  human  afifairs.     We 
can  see  its  advance  wherever  the  free  will  of  love  super- 
sedes the  use  of  force  and  legal  coercion  as  a  regulative  of 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    GOD  I43 

the  social  order.  This  involves  the  redemption  of  so- 
ciety from  pohtical  autocracies  and  economic  oHgarchies ; 
the  substitution  of  redemptive  for  vindictive  penology;  - 
the  abolition  of  constraint  through  hunger  as  part  of  the 
industrial  system ;  and  the  abolition  of  v^ar  as  the  supreme 
expression  of  hate  and  the  completest  cessation  of  free- 
dom, (c)  The  highest  expression  of  love  is  the  free 
surrender  of  what  is  truly  our  own,  life,  property,  and 
rights.  A  much  lower  but  perhaps  more  decisive  ex- 
pression of  love  is  the  surrender  of  any  opportunity  to 
exploit  men.  No  social  group  or  organization  can  claim 
to  be  clearly  within  the  Kingdom  of  God  which  drains 
others  for  its  own  ease,  and  resists  the  effort  to  abate 
this  fundamental  evil.  This  involves  the  redemption  of 
society  from  private  property  in  the  natural  resources  of 
the  earth,  and  from  any  condition  in  industry  which 
makes  monopoly  profits  possible,  (d)  The  reign  of  love 
tends  toward  the  progressive  unity  of  mankind,  but  with 
the  maintenance  of  individual  liberty  and  the  opportunity 
of  nations  to  work  out  their  own  national  peculiarities 
and  ideals. 

.\'    6.  Since  the  Kingdom  is  the  supreme  end  of  God,  it  , 
must  be  the  purpose  for  which  the  Church  exists.yThe 
measure  in  which  it  fulfils  this  purpose  is  also  the  meas- 
ure of  its  spiritual  authority  and  honour.     The  institu-^ 
tions  of  the  Church,  its  activities,  its  worship,  and  itsv, 
theology  must  in  the  long  run  be  tested  by  its  effectiveness  y 
in  creating  the  Kingdom  of  God.     For  the  Church  to 
see  itself  apart  from  the  Kingdom,  and  to  find  its  aims 
in  itself,  is  the  same  sin  of  selfish  detachment  as  when 
an  individual  selfishly  separates  himself  from  the  com- 


144  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL 

men  good.  The  Church  has  the  power  to  save  in  so  far 
as  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  present  in  it.  If  the  Church  is 
not  Hving  for  the  Kingdom,  its  institutions  are  part  of 
the  "  world."  In  that  case  it  is  not  the  power  of  redemp- 
tion but  its  object.  It  may  even  become  an  anti-Christian 
power.  If  any  form  of  church  organization  which  for- 
merly aided  the  Kingdom  now  impedes  it,  the  reason  for 
its  existence  is  gone. 

/  )(7.  Since  the  Kingdom  is  the  supreme  end,  all  problems 
of  personal  salvation  must  be  reconsidered  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  Kingdom.  V  It  is  not  sufficient  to  set 
the  two  aims  of  Christianity  side  by  side.  There  must 
be  a  synthesis,  and  theology  must  explain  how  the  two 
react  on  each  other.  (See  Chapter  X  of  this  book.) 
The  entire  redemptive  work  of  Christ  must  also  be  recon- 
sidered under  this  orientation.  Early  Greek  theology 
saw  salvation  chiefly  as  the  redemption  from  ignorance  by 
the  revelation  of  God  and  from  earthliness  by  the  im- 
partation  of  immortality.  It  interpreted  the  work  of 
Christ  accordingly,  and  laid  stress  on  his  incarnation  and 
resurrection.  Western  theology  saw  salvation  mainly 
as  forgiveness  of  guilt  and  freedom  from  punishment. 
It  interpreted  the  work  of  Christ  accordingly,  and  laid 
stress  on  the  death  and  atonement.  If  the  Kingdom  of 
God  was  the  guiding  idea  and  chief  end  of  Jesus  —  as 
we  now  know  it  was  —  we  may  be  sure  that  every  step 
in  His  life,  including  His  death,  was  related  to  that  aim 
and  its  realization,  and  when  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  takes  its  due  place  in  theology,  the  work  of  Christ 
will  have  to  be  interpreted  afresh. 

8.  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  not  confined  within  the 


THE    KINGDOM    OF   GOD  145 

limits  of  the  Church  and  its  activitiesX  It  embraces  the 
whole  of  human  life.  It  is  the  Christian  transfiguration 
of  the  social  order.  The  Church  is  one  social  institution 
alongside  of  the  family,  the  industrial  organization  of 
society,  and  the  State.  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  in  all 
these,  and  realizes  itself  through  them  all.  ^During  the 
Middle  Ages  all  society  was  ruled  and  guided  by  the 
Church.  Few  of  us  would  want  modern  life  to  return 
to  such  a  condition.  Functions  which  the  Church  used 
to  perform,  have  now  far  outgrowm  its  capacities.  The 
Church  is  indispensable  to  the  religious  education  of 
humanity  and  to  the  conservation  of  religion,  but  the 
greatest  future  awaits  religion  in  the  public  life  of  hu- 
manity. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE   INITIATOR   OF   THE    KINGDOM    OF   GOD 

The  social  gospel  has  an  inherent  interest  in  history. 
Individualistic  theology  sees  everywhere  countless  sin- 
ful individuals  who  must  all  go  through  the  same  process 
of  repentance,  faith,  justification,  and  regeneration,  and 
who  in  due  time  die  and  go  to  heaven  or  hell.  The  his- 
torical age  in  which  a  person  lived,  or  the  social  class  or 
race  to  which  he  belonged,  matters  little.  This  religious 
point  of  view  is  above  time  and  history.  On  the  other 
'hand  the  social  gospel  tries  to  see  the  progress  of  the 
i Kingdom  of  God  in  the  flow  of  history;  not  only  in  the 
I  doings  of  the  Church,  but  in  the  clash  of  economic 
,  forces  and  social  classes,  in  the  rise  and  fall  of  despotisms 
;and  forms  of  enslavement,  in  the  rise  of  new  value- 
,  judgments  and  fresh  canons  of  moral  taste  and  senti- 
ment, or  the  elevation  or  decline  of  moral  standards.  Its 
chief  interest  is  the  Kingdom  of  God ;  and  the  Kingdom 
of  God  is  history  seen  in  a  religious  and  teleologlcal  way. 
Therefore  the  social  gospel  is  always  historically  minded. 
Its  spread  goes  hand  in  hand  with  the  spread  of  the  his- 
torical spirit  and  method. 

This  dominant  interest  in  the  creation  and  progress  of 
social  redemption  influences  the  approach  to  the  theolog- 
ical problems  of  the  person  and  work  of  Christ.  We 
146 


INITIATOR    OF    THE    KINGDOM    OF    GOD  I47 

want  to  see  the  Christ  who  initiated  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  Theologians  have  always  tried  to  make  their 
christology  match  with  their  conception  of  salvation. 
If  they  believed  salvation  to  consist  chiefly  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  God,  they  emphasized  the  personality  and  the 
doctrine  of  Christ  as  the  complete  revelation  of  God. 
If  they  made  salvation  to  consist  chiefly  in  the  mystic 
impartation  of  divine  life  and  immortality,  their  christ- 
ology laid  chief  stress  on  the  union  of  the  divine  and 
human  in  the  incarnation  and  in  the  sacraments.  If  sal- 
vation consists  above  all  in  the  expiation  of  guilt,  the 
forgiveness  of  sins,  the  justification  of  the  sinner,  and  the 
remission  of  his  penalties,  then  we  need  a  Christ  who 
made  atonement  for  our  sins,  rendered  satisfaction  to 
God  for  our  delinquencies,  and  offset  our  guilty  defects 
by  his  infinite  merit  and  divine  virtue.  Each  concep- 
tion of  salvation  made  a  pragmatic  selection  and  con- 
struction of  the  facts.  Each  was  fragmentary,  but  with-; 
out  necessarily  excluding  other  series  of  ideas.  So  now 
the  social  gospel,  w^ithout  excluding  other  theological  con- 
victions, demands  to  understand  that  Christ  who  set  in 
motion  the  historical  forces  of  redemption  which  are 
to  overthrow  the  Kingdom  of  Evil. 

This  is  surely  not  an  illegitimate  interest.  It  is  a  re- 
turn to  the  earliest  messianic  theology;  whereas  some 
of  the  other  christological  interests  and  ideas  are  alien 
importations,  part  of  that  wave  of  *''  Hellenization " 
which  nearly  swamped  the  original  gospel. 

Being  historically  minded  and  realistic  in  its  interests,, 
the  social  gospel  is  less  concerned  in  the  metaphysical 
problems  involved   in  the  trinitarian  and   christological 


148  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE  SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

doctrines.  The  speculative  problem  of  christological 
dogma  was  how  the  divine  and  human  natures  united 
^  in  the  one  person  of  Christ;  the  problem  of  the  social 
I  gospel  is  how  the  divine  life  of  Christ  can  get  control 
I  of  human  society.  The  social ^gospelis_cgncernedabou^ 
J  a  progressive  social  incarnation  of  God. 

The  social  gospel  is  believed  by  trinitarians  and  uni- 
tarians alike,  by  Catholic  Modernists  and  Kansas  Pres- 
byterians of  the  most  cerulean  colour.  It  arouses  a 
fresh  and  warm  loyalty  to  Christ  wherever  it  goes, 
though  not  always  a  loyalty  to  the  Church.  All  who  be- 
lieve in  it  are  at  one  in  desiring  the  spiritual  sovereignty 
of  Christ  in  humanity.  Their  attitude  to  the  problems 
of  the  creeds  will  usually  be  determined  by  othe^r  influ- 
ences. 

Yet  there  are-  certain  qualities  in  the  social  gospel 
which  may  create  a  feeling  of  apathy  toward  the  specu- 
lative questions.  It  is  modern  and  is  out  for  realities. 
It  is  ethical  and  wants  ethical  results  from  theology.  It 
is  solidaristic  and  feels  homesick  in  the  atomistic  desert 
of  individualism. 

The  social  gospel  joins  with  all  modem  thought  in 
the  feeling  that  the  old  theology  does  not  give  us  a 
Christ  who  is  truly  personal.  Just  as  the  human  race, 
when  it  appears  in  theology,  is  an  amorphous  metaphys- 
ical conception  which  could  be  more  briefly  designated 
by  an  algebraic  symbol,  in  the  same  way  the  personality 
of  Jesus  is  not  allowed  to  be  real  under  theological  in- 
fluence. If  it  does  stand  out  vital  and  resolute,  it  is  in 
spite  of  theology  and  not  because  of  it.     Some  of  the 


INITIATOR    OF    THE    KINGDOM    OF    GOD  I49 

greatest  theologians,  men  who  wrote  epoch-making 
treatises  about  Christ,  such  as  Athanasius,  give  no  indi- 
cation that  the  personahty  of  Jesus  was  live  and  real 
to  them.  When  those  who  have  been  trained  under  the 
old  religious  beliefs  come  under  the  influence  of  his- 
torical teaching,  the  realization  that  Jesus  was  actually 
a  person,  and  not  merely  part  of  a  "  scheme  of  redemp- 
tion," often  comes  as  a  great  and  beneficent  shock.  He 
has  been  made  part  of  a  scheme  of  salvation,  the  second 
premise  in  a  great  syllogism.  The  social  gospel  wants 
to  see  a  personality  able  to  win  hearts,  dominate  situa- 
tions, able  to  bind  men  in  loyalty  and  make  them  think 
like  himself,  and  to  set  revolutionary  social  forces  in 
motion. 

Every  event  and  saying  in  the  life  of  Christ  has,  of 
course,  been  scanned  intensely  and  used  over  and  over 
for  edification  or  theological  proof.  But  in  the  main 
the  theological  significance  of  the  life  of  Christ  has  been 
comprised  in  the  incarnation,  the  atonement,  and  the  res- 
urrection. The  life  in  general  served  mainly  to  con- 
nect and  lead  up  to  these  great  events,  and  to  found 
the  Church.^  The  things  in  which  Jesus  himself  was 
passionately  interested  and  which  he  strove  to  accomplish, 
do  not  seem  to  count  for  much.  The  impartation  of  di- 
vine life  and  immortality  to  the  race  was  accomplished 
when  he  was  a  babe.  The  atonement  might  actually 
have  been  frustrated  if  the  life  effort  of  Jesus  had  been 

1  The  treatment  of  his  "  work  "  under  the  three  heads  of  prophet, 
priest,  and  king,  which  is  an  hereditary  scheme  in  theology,  seems 
antique  and  far-fetched.  Moreover,  his  kingly  office  mainly  begins 
with  his  resurrection.  His  kingly  work  in  historical  life  has  been 
treated  with  neglect. 


150  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

successful,   for  if  the  Jews  had  accepted  his  spiritual 
leadership,  they  would  not  have  killed  him. 

The  social  gospel  would  interpret  all  the  events  of  his 
\  life,  including  his  death,  by  the  dominant  purpose  which 
;  he  consistently  followed,  the  establishment  of  the  King- 
dom  of   God.     This   is  the  only  interpretation  which 
would  have  appealed  to  himself,  ^is^hje  jwas,.,what 
counted;  his  death  was  part  of  it.     The  historic  current 
of  salvation  which  went  out  from  him  is  the  prolonga- 
tion of  that  life  into  which  he  put  his  conscious  energy. 
Theology  has  made  the  divinity  of  Christ  a  question 
of  nature  rather  than  character.     His  divinity  was  an 
inheritance  or  endowment  which  he  brought  with  him 
.and  which  was  fixed  for  him  in  his  pre-existent  state. 
I  He  was  divine  on  account  of  what  took  place  at  one 
|moment  in  the  womb  of  one  Jewish  woman  rather  than 
jpn  account  of  all  that  took  place  in  the  inner  depths  of 
|his  spirit  when  he  communed  with  his  Father  and  fought 
/through  the  issues  of  his  life.     Theology  has  been  on  a 
false  trail  in  seeking  the  key  to  his  life  in  the  difficult 
doctrine  of  the  two  natures.     That  doctrine  has  never 
been  settled.     The  formula  of  Chalcedon  was  a  compro- 
mise.    Any  attempt  to  think  precisely  about  the  ques- 
tion results  in  a  caricature  ;_safetyjiesjn^vagu^^         We 
shall  come  closer  to  the  secret  of  Jesus  if  we  think  less 
of  the  physical  process  of  conception  and  more  of  the 
spiritual  processes  of  desire,  choice,  affirmation,  and  self- 
surrender  within  his  own  will  and  personality.     The  mys- 
teries of  the  spiritual  world  take  place  within  the  will. 

To  repeat:     The  social  gospel  is  not  primarily  inter- 
ested in  metaphysical  questions ;  its  christological  inter- 

r 


INITIATOR    OF    THE    KINGDOM    OF    GOD  I5I 

est  is  all. for,  a  real  personality  who  could  set  a  great 
historical  process  in  motion ;  it  wants  his  work  interpreted  ,- 
by  the  purposes  which  ruled  and  directed  his  active  life;  i 
it  would  have  more  interest  in  basing  the  divine  quality  l""i-. 
of  his  personality  on  free  and  ethical  acts  of  his  will  ! 
than  in  dwelling  on  the  passive  inheritance  of  a  divine  / 
essence. 

The  fundamental  first  step  in  the  salvation  of  man- 
kind was  the  achievement  of  the  personality  of  Jesus. 
Within  him  the  Kingdom  of  God  got  its  first  foothold 
in  humanity.  It  was  by  virtue  of  his  personality  that 
■  he  became  the  initiator  of  the  Kingdom. 

His  personality  was  an  achievement,  not  an  effort- 
less inheritance.  His  temptations  and  struggles  were  not 
stage-combats.  At  every  point  of  his  life  he  had  to 
see  his  way  through  the  tangle  of  moral  questions  which 
invited  to  errors  and  misjudgments ;  his  clarity  of  judg- 
ment was  an  achievement.  Not  only  in  the  desert  but 
all  the  way  he  had  to  re-affirm  his  unity  with  the  will 
of  God  and  make  all  aims  subservient  to  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  The  inclination  early  set  in  to  eliminate  the  ele- 
ment of  temptation,  of  effort,  of  vigorous  action  and  re- 
action, and  to  show  him  calm,  majestic,  omniscient,  the 
effortless  master  of  all  forces.  This  was  supposed  to 
be  the  proper  demonstration  of  divinity  in  human  form ; 
in  fact  it  was  a  demonstration  of  feeble  imagination  and 
of  Gnostic  tendencies  in  his  interpreters.  Possibly  God 
might  be  revealed  in  a  life  wholly  placid  and  complete; 
certainly  the  Kingdom  of  God  could  not  be  initiated  by 
such  a  life,  for  the  Kingdom  of  God  means  battle.     In 


152  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL 

all  Other  cases  we  judge  the  ethical  worth  of  a  man  by 
the  character  he  achieves  by  will  and  effort.  If  he  has 
any  unusual  outfit  of  nature  we  deduct  it  in  our  esti- 
mate. How  can  we  claim  high  ethical  value  for  the 
personality  and  character  of  Jesus  if  no  effort  of  will  was 
necessary  to  achieve  it? 

Jesus  lived  out  his  own  life.  Like  every  other  Ego  he 
existed  for  himself  as  well  as  for  others.  He  was  as- 
serting and  defending  his  right  to  be  himself  when  he 
stood  up  for  others.  The  problems  of  human  life  were 
not  simply  official  problems  to  him,  but  personal  prob- 
lems. But  unlike  others,  he  did  not  fall  into  the  sin  of 
selfishness,  because  he  succeeded  in  uniting  the  service 
of  the  common  good  with  the  affirmation  of  his  self- 
hood. 

The  personality  which  he  achieved  was  a  new  type  in 
humanity.  Having  the  power  to  master  and  assimilate 
others,  it  became  the  primal  cell  of  a  new  social  organ- 
ism. Even  if  there  had  been  no  sin  from  which  man- 
kind had  to  be  redeemed,  the  life  of  Jesus  would  have 
dated  an  epoch  in  the  evolution  of  the  race  by  the  intro- 
duction of  a  new  type  of  consequent  new  social  stand- 
ards. He  is  the  real  revelation  of  God.  Other  concep- 
tions have  to  be  outlived ;  his  has  to  be  attained. 

In  the  words  of  one  of  the  most  personal  and  orig- 
inal idealistic  philosophers:  "The  consciousness  of  the 
absolute  unity  of  the  human  and  the  divine  hfe  is  the 
profoundest  insight  possible  to  man.  Before  Jesus  it  did 
not  exist.  Since  his  time,  we  might  say  to  this  day, 
it  has  been  almost  lost  again,  at  least  in  secular  philos- 
ophy.    Jesus  evidently  had  this  insight.     How  did  he 


INITIATOR    OF    THE    KINGDOM    OF    GOD  1 53 

get  it?  There  is  nothing  very  wonderful  in  rediscov- 
ering the  truth  after  another  man  has  found  the  way; 
but  how  the  first,  separated  by  ages  before  and  after  by 
the  sole  possession  of  this  insight,  obtained  it,  this  is 
matter  for  profound  wonder.  Therefore  it  is  really 
true  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  in  a  unique  way,  true  of 
no  other,  is  the  only  begotten  and  first  born  Son  of 
God,  and  that  all  ages,  if  they  are  capable  of  understand- 
ing him  at  all,  must  recognize  him  as  such.  It  is  true 
enough  that  now  any  man  can  rediscover  this  doctrine 
in  the  writings  of  the  apostles  and  appropriate  it  in  his 
own  convictions.  It  is  also  true,  and  we  assert  it,  that 
the  philosopher, —  as  far  as  he  knows, —  discovers  the 
same  truths  independently  of  Christianity,  and  sees  them 
with  a  clearness  and  breadth  of  vision  which  traditional 
Christianity  can  not  match.  Yet  it  remains  for  ever  true 
that  we,  our  entire  age,  and  all  our  philosophical  investi- 
gations are  based  on  Christianity,  and  our  thinking  pro- 
ceeds from  it;  that  this  Christian  faith  has  entered  in 
the  most  manifold  ways  into  our  entire  culture;  and 
that  we  all  would  not  be  what  we  are,  unless  this  power- 
ful principle  had  preceded  us  historically.  It  remains 
incontestably  true  that  all  those  who  since  Jesus  have 
arrived  at  union  with  God,  have  attained  it  only  through 
him  and  by  his  mediation.  Thus  in  every  way  it  is  con- 
firmed that  to  the  end  of  time  all  wise  men  will  bow 
before  this  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and  the  more  of  life  they 
have  themselves,  the  more  humbly  will  they  acknowledge 
the  exceeding  glory  of  this  great  personality."  ^ 

ijohann   Gottlieb  Fichts,  "Die  Anweisung  zum  seligen  Leben," 
Lecture  VI.     1806.     The  translation  is  mine. 


154  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL  GOSPEL 

Jesus  experienced  God  in  a  new  way.  The  ethical 
monotheism  which  he  inherited  from  the  prophets  was 
transformed  within  his  spirit  and  through  his  experiences 
into  something  far  lovelier  and  kinder.  Jehovah,  the 
keeper  of  covenants  and  judge  of  his  people,  was  changed 
into  the  Father  in  heaven  who  forgives  sins  freely,  wel- 
comes the  prodigal,  makes  his  sun  to  shine  on  the  just 
and  unjust,  and  asks  for  nothing  but  love,  trust,  and  co- 
operative obedience.  This  intuition  of  God  was  bom 
in  a  life  that  neither  hated  nor  feared,  and  so  far  as  it 
is  adopted  in  any  single  life  or  in  the  life  of  humanity, 
it  banishes  hate  and  fear.  An  overpowering  conscious- 
ness of  God  is  needed  in  order  to  offset  and  overcome 
the  tyranny  of  the  sensuous  life  and  its  temptations. 
This  consciousness  of  God  which  we  derive  from  Jesus  is 
able  to  establish  centres  of  spiritual  strength  and  peace 
which  help  to  break  the  free  sweep  of  evil  in  social  life. 
Jesus  set  love  into  the  centre  of  the  spiritual  universe,  and 
all  life  is  illuminated  from  that  centre.  This  is  the  high- 
est idealistic  faith  ever  conceived,  and  the  greatest  addi- 
tion ever  made  to  the  spiritual  possessions  of  mankind. 
With  such  a  Father  spiritual  intimacy  is  possible. 
With  a  despotic  God  prayer  is  a  series  of  court  obeisances 
and  a  secret  fencing  for  personal  independence.  But 
given  such  a  God  as  Jesus  knew,  and  the  consciousness 
of  him  would  steal  in  everywhere  and  envelop  all  life 
in  peace.  It  made  righteousness  a  joy  and  sin  repulsive. 
Any  one  who  has  ever  been  under  a  clear  and  happy 
realization  of  God  will  remember  how  spontaneous  good- 
:  ness  becomes. 

So  we  have  in  Jesus  a  perfect  religious  personality, 


INITIATOR    OF    THE    KINGDOM    OF    GOD  155 

a  Spiritual  life  completely  filled, by  the  realization  of  a 
God  who  is  love.     All  his  mind  was  set  on  God  and  one 
with  him.     Consequently  it  was  also  absorbed  in  the  fun- 
damental purpose  of  God,  the  Kingdom  of  God.     Like 
!  the  idea  of  God,  the  conception  of  the  Kingdom  was  both 
I  an  inheritance  and  a  creation  of  Jesus ;  he  received  it  and 
'  transformed  it  in  accordance  with  his  consciousness  of 
God.     Within  his  mind  the  punitive  and  imperialistic  ele- 
ments were  steeped  out  of  it,  and  the  elements  of  love 
and  solidarity  were  dyed  into  it.     The  Reign  of  God 
came  to  mean  the  organized  fellowship  of  humanity  act-  " 
ing  under  the  impulse  of  love. 

.,   By  virtue  of  this  consciousness  of  God  Jesus  rose  above 
•'three  temptations  which  have  beset  other  religious  spir- 
its. 

The  first  temptation  is__mysj;icisro,.  Those  who  havef 
been.initiated  into  the  secret  inner  way  of  God,  and  have 
experienced  the  sweetness  of  losing  self  in  the  all-com- 
prehending and  holy  Life,  are  tempted  to  turn  in  high 
disdain  from  the  small  and  material  contacts  and  du- 
ties which  bind  the  soul  on  the  wheel  that  ever  revolves 
and  never  gets  anywhere,  and  to  seek  the  tranquillity  and 
forgetfulness  of  mystic  absorption.  This  is  one  of  the 
temptations  of  the  noblest  souls. 

Jesus  was  not  a  mystic  in  the  narrower  sense  of  the 
escape  from  the  world.  He  is  our  great  example  of 
prayer  and  of  intimate  communion  with  God.  But  the 
Kingdom  of  God  engaged  his  will  and  set  his  task  in  the 
midst  of  men.  He  drew  his  strength  from  God,  but  he 
put  it  forth  in  the  world.     The  Kingdom  of  God  put  di- 


156  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

vine  significance  into  all  his  minor  duties  and  saved 
life  from  religious  disdain.  We  all  know  the  common 
statue  of  Buddha,  with  his  hands  relaxed  and  inactive 
in  his  lap,  his  eyes  unseeing  and  visionary,  his  lips  in 
the  smile  of  mystic  contentment.  We  can  not  see  Jesus 
so. 

I  The  second  temptation  is  pessimism.  Religion  cre- 
ates a  profound  sense  of  the  evil  in  life.  Those  whose 
ears  are  attuned  to  hear  the  deepest  organ  note  of  the 
universe,  hear  a  groan  of  travail  from  the  under  deep. 
Consequently  pessimism  has  been  the  sombre  habitation 
of  many  noble  religious  minds  from  Buddha  to  Schopen- 
hauer. The  dualism  of  the  first  century,  both  philo- 
sophical and  religious,  was  an  expression  of  pessimism. 
Christianity  was  sucked  thigh-deep  into  this  quicksand. 
Its  earliest  speculative  theologians,  the  Gnostics,  were  so 
pessimistic  that  to  them  the  creation  of  the  world  was  a 
blunder  or  a  crime,  and  the  Creator-God  of  Judaism  got 
no  reverence  from  them  for  perpetrating  this  world. 

Jesus  was  not  a  pessimist.  Since  God  was  love,  this 
world  was  to  him  fundamentally  good.  He  realized  not 
only  evil  but  the  Kingdom  of  Evil;  but  he  launched 
the  Kingdom  of  God  against  it,  and  staked  his  life  on  its 
triumph.  His  faith  in  God  and  in  the  Kingdom  of  God 
constituted  him  a  religious  optimist.  Even  when  his  life 
was  overshadowed  by  opposition,  seeming  failure,  and 
death,  his  prevailing  temper  was  not  melancholy,  but 
youthful  and  triumphant.  He  had  no  use  for  the  studied 
melancholy  of  periodical  fasting.  Why  should  his 
friends  fast?  They  were  having  a  wedding  time.  Why 
pour  the  new  wine  of  gladness  into  the  old  sad  bottles, 


INITIATOR    OF    THE    KINGDOM    OF    GOD  1 57 

and  why  sew  a  new  patch  on  a  garment  that  was  dropping 
to  pieces  ? 

The  third  temptation  of  religious  spirits  is  asceticism  | 
and  other-worldhness.  Both  are  related  to  pessimism.  I 
The  monk  repudiates  the  social  life  which  tempts  him, 
scours  the  stains  of  worldliness  from  his  soul  by  spir- 
itual exercises,  wears  the  earthly  integument  thin  by 
hunger  and  castigation,  and  enjoys  the  other  world  by 
anticipation  whenever  angels  visit  him  or  he  has  a  vision 
of  divine  glory.  All  Christians  who  yearn  to  escape 
from  this  vale  of  tears  and  whose  life  is  really  set  on  an- 
other world,  are  to  that  extent  pessimistic.  The  asceti- 
cism and  other-worldliness  of  ancient  and  mediaeval 
Christianity  were  results  of  its  "  Hellenization,"  as  Har- 
nack  calls  it.  It  took  a  thousand  years  of  history,  great 
social  and  intellectual  changes,  and  an  unparalleled  re- 
ligious revolution  to  set  Christianity  even  partly  free  from 
these  influences  of  its  early  Greek  and  Oriental  environ- 
ment. 

Jesus  was  neither  ascetic  nor  other-w^orldly.  He  for- 
mulated the  distinctive  difference  between  himself  and 
John  the  Baptist  in  the  saying  that  John  ate  not  and 
drank  not,  while  he  himself  ate  and  drank,  and  quoted 
the  critics  who  called  him  a  glutton  and  wine-bibber. 
He  believed  in  a  life  after  death,  but  it  was  not  the  domi- 
nant element  in  his  teaching,  nor  the  constraining  force 
in  his  religious  life.  There  are  sayings  in  the  gospels 
which  are  ascetic,  and  more  that  are  apocalyptic;  but 
Jesus,  I  believe,  was  neither.  In  so  far  as  these  sayings 
were  really  his  own,  their  ideas  were  part  of  the  equip- 
ment furnished  him  by  his  age  and  religion;  they  were 


I5o  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

not  the  essential  products  of  his  life.  His  mind  was 
not  at  all  of  the  same  family  type  as  those  who  wrote 
and  re-wrote  the  apocalyptic  literature.-  He  fasted  when 
he  was  absorbed  in  thought;  so  did  Socrates;  so  do 
others.  He  went  without  food,  sleep,  and  home-life  be- 
cause he  was  set  on  a  big  thing.  This  is  the  revolution- 
ary asceticism  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  but  that  is  wholly 
different  from  the  individualistic  and  other-worldly  as- 
ceticism of  the  Nitrian  desert. 

My  own  conviction  is  that  the  professional  theologians 
of  Europe,  who  all  belong  by  kinship  and  sympathy  to 
the  bourgeois  classes  and  are  constitutionally  incapaci- 
tated for  understanding  any  revolutionary  ideas,  past  or 
present,  have  overemphasized  the  ascetic  and  eschatolog- 
ical  elements  in  the  teachings  of  Jesus.  They  have 
classed  as  ascetic  or  apocalyptic  the  radical  sayings  about 
property  and  non-resistance  which  seem  to  them  unprac- 
tical or  visionary.  If  the  present  chastisement  of  God 
purges  our  intellects  of  capitalistic  and  upper-class  in- 
iquities, we  shall  no  longer  damn  these  sayings  by  calling 
them  eschatological,  but  shall  exhibit  them  as  anticipa- 
tions of  the  fraternal  ethics  of  democracy  and  prophecies 
of  social  common  sense. 

Jesus  communed  with  God ;  he  realized  the  evil  in  the 
world;  and  he  held  his  life  with  a  light  grasp.  Yet  he 
escaped  the  noble  temptations  of  religion  contained  in 
mysticism,  pessimism,  asceticism,  and  other-worldliness. 
Out  of  the  same  ingredients,  communion  with  God, 
realization  of  evil,  and  religious  intensity  and  self-con- 
trol, he  built  a  higher  synthesis.  His  attitude  to  life  was 
the  direct  product  of  his  twofold  belief,  in  the  Father 


INITIATOR    OF   THE    KINGDOM    OF   GOD  1 59 

who  is  love  and  the  Kingdom  of  God  which  is  righteous- 
ness. Mediaeval  Christianity,  v^hich  was  mystic,  ascetic, 
and  other-worldly,  was  not  built  on  his  synthesis.  On 
the  other  hand  the  social  gospel  can  be.  His  affirmation 
of  life  is  the  ideal  basis  for  the  social  gospel.  No  re- 
ligion involving  the  negation  of  life  is  really  compatible 
with  it.  It  remains  to  be  seen  whether  anything  like  the 
social  gospel  can  make  headway  in  Buddhistic  countries; 
and  if  it  does,  whether  it  will  not  transform  the  old 
Buddhism. 

His  communion  with  God  and  his  devotion  to  the  King- 
dom of  God  set  Jesus  free  and  also  bound  him.  They 
freed  him  from  the  conservatism  of  inherited  religion 
and  from  the  coercion  of  the  social  order;  they  bound 
him  to  a  life  of  obedience  and  to  the  utter  service  of 
men.  The  harmony  of  these  antinomies  is  one  of  the 
distinctive  qualities  of  his  personality. 

He  was  a  loyal  son  of  his  nation,  a  believer  in  its 
traditions  and  its  worth,  and  we  know  how  deeply  he 
was  moved  by  his  foresight  of  its  disaster.  His  religious 
life  was  inseparable  from  that  of  his  nation.  There  w^ere 
no  novel  or  alien  elements  in  it,  as  with  Paul  or  Philo, 
which  might  have  laid  the  basis  for  departures.  He 
never  cut  loose  from  the  religion  of  his  fathers,  and 
never  told  his  followers  to  leave  the  synagogue  and  found 
the  Church.     He  was  no  come-outer. 

But  he  had  a  higher  law  and  allegiance  within  him. 
In  so  far  as  the  religious  customs  of  Judaism  conflicted 
with  his  consciousness  of  God  or  with  the  reign  of  love, 
he  broke  with  them.     He  contravened  the  Sabbath  regu- 


l6o  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

lations  when  they  inflicted  suffering  or  interfered  with 
acts  of  mercy.  He  set  aside  the  entire  principle  of 
clean  and  unclean  food  because  it  had  no  ethical  truth 
in  it.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  was  a  deliberate  dec- 
laration that  the  old  moral  law  was  insufiflcient  and  that 
new  ethical  standards  were  needed  for  the  new  era.  His 
invective  against  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  repudiated, 
not  only  the  clerical  "  system  "  which  was  exploiting  re- 
ligion, but  the  models,  definitions,  and  casuistry  of  cur- 
rent theology.  Aside  from  his  action  of  cleansing  "  the 
house  of  prayer "  from  the  chatter  of  the  market,  he 
scarcely  mentioned  the  temple  and  its  sacrifices,  except 
to  rank  them  below  love  and  reconciliation.  Ceremonial 
acts  were  not  the  proper  expression  of  his  consciousness 
of  God.  He  realized  religion  in  acts  expressing  love  and 
fellowship,  or  in  breaking  with  the  Kingdom  of  Evil. 
Under  his  teaching  the  burden  of  time,  expense  and  rou- 
tine through  which  religious  men  sought  to  appease 
God's  anger  or  court  his  favour,  dropped  away.  H  God 
was  love,  why  these  doings  ?  "'  The  Gentiles  think  they 
shall  be  heard  for  their  many-worded  prayers ;  be  not  like 
them;  your  Father  knows." 

Such  a  change  of  attitude  toward  the  ritual  institu- 
tions of  religion,  when  it  has  become  common,  has 
availed  to  purge  the  religion  of  whole  nations  of  its  non- 
ethical  inheritances;  it  has  reinforced  the  progressive 
elements  of  society  by  turning  the  energies  of  religion 
from  the  maintenance  of  conservative  institutions  to  the 
support  of  movements  for  political  emancipation  and  so- 
cial justice.  Such  a  change  in  religion  inaugurates  new 
eras  in  history. 


INITIATOR    OF   THE   KINGDOM    OF   GOD 


i6t 


Now,  such  changes,  when  they  have  happened,  have 
been  due  in  part  to  a  renaissance  of  this  attitude  of 
Jesus.  In  the  case  of  the  Protestant  Reformation  it  was 
mainly  due  to  a  revival  of  Paul's  attitude  of  freedom  over 
against  the  Law.  But  Paul's  freedom  was  one  of  the 
treasures  which  he  derived  from  Christ. 

With  Jesus  this  spiritual  attitude  toward  the  religious 
customs  of  his  people  was  the  consistent  outworking  of 
his  consciousness  of  God  and  of  his  conception  of  the 
reign  of  God.  In  making  his  stand  on  each  of  the  points 
which  brought  him  into  conflict,  he  was  achieving  his 
own  personality. 

The  God  whom  Jesus  bore  within  him  was  not  the 
God  of  one  nation.  The  reign  of  God  which  he  meant 
to  establish  was  not  a  new  imperialism  with  the  chosen 
people  on  the  top  of  the  pile.  The  gospels  show  us  Jesus 
in  the  act  of  crossing  the  racial  boundary  lines  and  out- 
growing nationalistic  religion.  He  recognized  the  reli- 
gious qualities  in  a  pagan;  he  foresaw  that  the  King- 
dom of  God  would  cut  across  the  old  lines  of  division; 
he  held  up  the  hyphenated  and  heretical  Samaritan  as 
a  model  of  humane  kindness.  Every  time  a  wider  con- 
tact was  offered  him,  he  seized  it  with  a  sense  of  exulta- 
tion, like,  the  discoverer  of  a  new  continent.  That 
world-wide  consciousness  of  humanity,  which  is  coming 
to  some  in  protest  against  the  hideous  disruption  and 
hatred  of  the  War,  was  won  by  Jesus  at  less  cost  under 
the  tuition  of  God  and  the  Kingdom  ideal. 

Tesus  lived  in  a  world  of  high  thought  and  set  his  face 
toward  the  greatest  of  all  aims.     But  he  talked  peace- 


1 62  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

fully  with  simple  people,  and  was  impatient  when  his 
friends  did  not  want  him  annoyed  by  children.  He  was 
valorous,  fearless,  an  outdoor  man,  and  an  invincible 
fighter.  But  he  was  so  tender  to  the  sick  and  so  com- 
radely with  the  poor  that  "  Christlike "  has  remained 
one  of  the  aristocratic  adjectives  in  our  language,  and 
men  like  Saint  Francis,  who  followed  him  and  grew  like 
him,  have  stood  out  as  the  beloved  souls,  the  rare  flowers 
of  esoteric  humanity. 

He  was  a  proud  spirit  who  lived  out  his  own  life  and 
asserted  himself  against  all  the  weight  of  authority, 
against  his  king,  against  the  supreme  court  of  his  nation, 
against  Moses,  against  professional  theology  and  the  law- 
yer caste,  against  the  power  of  custom,  against  his  home 
community,  against  his  own  mother.  But  he  had  a 
thirst  for  friendship,  an  unfailing  insight  into  the  subtler 
motives  and  longings  of  men  and  women,  a  thrilling  re- 
sponsiveness to  the  emotions  of  masses  of  men,  and  an 
unexampled  sense  of  the  sacredness  of  personality. 

He  bowed  to  law  and  order.  He  paid  his  taxes,  and 
advised  others  to  do  it.  He  sent  a  leper  to  the  proper 
oi¥icer  to  get  his  sanitary  certificate.  But  he  had  no 
spiritual  awe  for  the  exponents  of  the  present  social  or- 
der. He  challenged  its  moral  basis.  He  dropped  into 
the  silence  of  a  passive  resister  when  he  faced  a  typical 
court,  and  he  was  felt  then  and  ever  since  as  a  force 
against  despotism. 

The  personality  of  Jesus  is  a  call  to  the  emancipa- 
tion of  our  own  personalities.  He  has  multiplied  free 
souls.  Every  such  soul  counts  in  the  progress  of  man- 
kind.    They  are  rare.     They  are  most  effective  in  the 


INITIATOR    OF    THE    KINGDOM    OF    GOD  1 63 

redemption  of  society  when  tliey  are  free  from  the  acrid 
qualities  of  rebellion.  Those  who  have  derived  their 
spiritual  freedom  and  their  social  spirit  from  Jesus  are 
most  likely  to  have  the  combination  of  freedom  with 
love  and  gentleness.  This  ought  to  be  the  distinctive 
mark  of  Christ  within  the  social  movement.  Is  it  true 
that  Jesus  has  been  experienced  as  a  Liberator  more  fre- 
quently apart  from  theology  than  within  it?  If  so, 
why? 

To  think  out  any  one  of  these  convictions,  or  to 
achieve  any  one  of  these  harmonies,  so  that  all  life  can 
become  simple,  whole-hearted,  and  divinely  intelligible 
through  its  truth,  is  a  great  achievement  for  a  life-time, 
Luther  was  one  of  the  most  dynamic  personalities  in  his- 
tory, one  of  the  epoch-making  religious  minds.  Yet  it 
took  him  years  of  morbid  struggle  to  emerge  from  the 
gloom  of  religious  fear  into  Christian  assurance,  and  to 
cut  across  the  labyrinth  of  church  methods  by  the  short- 
cut of  simple  faith.  And  after  achieving  this  discovery, 
he  imposed  his  emancipating  faith  on  others  as  a  sov- 
ereign formula,  and  would  not  let  others  advance  be- 
yond the  point  he  had  reached.  With  Jesus  these  great 
inward  convictions  were  not  academic  theory,  but  life 
and  action.  They  were  the  reality  on  which  he  staked 
all.  They  were  so  much  his  own  that  he  acted  on  them 
as  a  matter  of  course,  with  a  self-possession  which  did 
not  have  to  weigh  and  consider,  but  struck  ahead,  and 
struck  right. 

In  the  case  of  biological  mutations  the  question  is  not 
only  whether  the  new  type  is  valuable,  but  also  whether 


164  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

it  will  breed  true  and  succeed  in  perpetuating  itself 
against  the  competition  of  other  types.  Jesus  not  only 
achieved  the  kind  of  religious  personality  which  we  have 
tried  to  bring  before  our  memory  and  imagination,  but 
he  succeeded  in  perpetuating  his  spirit.  What  was  per- 
sonal with  him  became  social  within  the  group  of  the 
disciples.  His  life  became  a  collective  and  assimilating 
force  and  a  current  of  historic  tradition. 

His  disciples  were  human  stuff,  and  all  of  them  doubt- 
less were  thin  conductors  for  the  powerful  current  they 
had  to  convey.  His  Jewish  friends  were  full  of  older 
ideas,  and  most  of  them  seem  to  have  sagged  back  toward 
conservative  Judaism.  Luke's  narrative  about  Peter  and 
Stephen,  and  Paul's  profound  trouble  of  mind  about  the 
Judaizing  brethren  are  evidence.  As  soon  as  the  Church 
moved  out  into  the  Greek  world,  a  process  of  assimilation 
began  which  left  little  of  the  real  Jesus  in  sight.  The 
historical  research  of  the  last  forty  years  has  written  a 
new  chapter  about  the  sufferings  of  Jesus.  Imagine  him 
coming  into  a  Gnostic  conventicle  in  a.  d.  150,  or  into 
the  Church  of  Cyprian  in  a.  d.  250,  or  into  high  mass 
at  the  Church  of  the  Lateran  in  a.  d.  1250,  and  trying  to 
discover  what  it  was  all  about. 

And  yet  he  survived.  He  has  come  through  to  this 
day  with  his  thought  and  his  personality  still  vital,  siii 
generis,  and  far  ahead  of  our  day.  Whenever  his  spirit 
has  been  embodied  again  in  a  striking  degree  in  some 
Individual,  people  have  gathered  around  that  man,  hun- 
gry for  salvation.  Any  man  In  whom  the  Jesus-strain 
reappears  clearly  Is  felt  to  be  a  kind  of  superman.  H 
Tolstoi,  for  instance,  had  never  begun  to  follow  Christ 


INITIATOR    OF    THE    KINGDOM    OF    GOD  165 

in  his  life,  he  would  be  simply  one  of  a  group  of  brilliant 
Russian  novelists.  Since  he  received  something  of  the 
mind  of  Jesus  into  his  mind,  he  became  one  of  the  pro- 
phetic figures  of  our  age  and  no  one  can  tell  how  much 
he  contributed,  through  others,  to  enable  Russia,  newly 
free,  to  make  the  one  sincere  and  penetrating  utterance 
made  on  behalf  of  democracy  and  peace  in  the  Spring 
and  Summer  of  191 7.  In  the  same  way  those  religious 
movements  in  which  the  distinctive  ideas  and  spirit  of 
Jesus  have  broken  forth  again,  have  been  the  fruitful 
and  prophetic  movements  in  religion.  Their  power  of 
attack  can  best  be  measured  by  the  ferocity  with  which 
the  Kingdom  of  Evil  has  trampled  on  them. 

.^.,   .■    The  Kingdom  of  God  is  not  a  concept  nor  an  ideal 
^'K merely,  but  an  historical  force.     It  is  a  vital  and  organ- 
..-lizing  energy  now  at  work  in  humanity.     Its  capacity  to 
;save  the  social  order  depends  on  its  pervasive  presence 
■ '  within   the   social   organism.     Every  institutional    foot- 
hold gained  gives  a  purchase  for  attacking  the  next  van- 
tage-point.    Where  a  really  Christian  type  of  religious 
life  is  created,  the  intellect  and  its  education  are  set  free, 
and  this  in  turn  aids  religion  to  emancipate  itself  from  su- 
perstition and  dogmatism.     Where  religion  and  intellect 
combine,  the  foundation  is  laid  for  political  democracy. 
Where   the   people   have   the   outfit   and    the    spirit   of 
'  democracy,  they  can  curb  economic  exploitation.     Where 
predatory  gain  and  the  resultant  inequality  are  lessened, 
■  fraternal  feeling  and  understanding  become  easier  and 
the  sense  of  solidarity  grows.     Where  men  live  in  the 
consciousness  of  solidarity  and  in  the  actual  practice  of 


'l66  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

love  with  their  fellow-men,  they  are  not  far  from  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  The  great  thing  in  the  salvation  of 
humanity  is  that  salvation  is  present.     Life  begets  life. 

Yet  it  is  a  matter  of  unspeakable  difficulty  for  the 
Kingdom  of  God  to  make  headway  against  the  inherent 
weakness  of  human  nature  and  the  social  entrenchments 
of  the  Kingdom  of  Evil.  "  The  risks'  of  temporary  dis- 
aster which  great  ideals  run,  appear  to  be  directly  propor- 
tioned to  the  value  of  the  ideals.  Great  truths  bear  long 
sorrows."  ^  The  more  we  do  justice  to  this  fact,  the 
more  we  shall  realize  that  the  Initiation  and  perpetuation 
of  the  historical  movement  of  redemption  was  the  essen- 
tial thing.  Jesus  was  the  Initiator.  To  show  this  more 
and  more  clearly  is  the  service  the  social  gospel  asks  of 
doctrinal  and  historical  theology.  By  this  avenue  of  ap- 
proach we  shall  appreciate  the  human  dimensions  of 
Jesus,  The  Individualistic  theology  was  the  creation  of 
men  with  little  historical  training  and  historical  con- 
sciousness, and  to  that  extent  the  problems  they  set  were 
the  product  of  uneducated  minds.  The  full  greatness  of 
the  problem  of  Jesus  strikes  us  when  we  see  him  in  his 
connection  with  human  history.  Our  own  consciousness 
of  God's  love  and  forgiveness,  our  inward  freedom,  our 
social  feeling,  the  set  of  our  will  toward  the  achievement 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  our  fellowship  with  the  "  two  or 
three  "  In  which  we  have  a  realization  of  the  higher  pres- 
ence, we  owe  to  our  connection  with  the  historical  force 
which  Jesus  initiated.  Where  did  he  himself  get  what 
he  had  ?     At  what  fountain  did  he  drink  ? 

1  Royce,  "  Problem  of  Oiristianity,"  I,  54. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE   SOCIAL    GOSPEL   AND    THE    CONCEPTION    OF   GOD 

My  main  purpose  in  this  book  has  been  to  show  that  the 
social  gospel  is  a  vital  part  of  the  Christian  conception  of 
sin  and  salvation,  and  that  any  teaching  on  the  sinful 
condition  of  the  race  and  on  its  redemption  from  evil 
which  fails  to  do  justice  to  the  social  factors  and  pro- 
cesses in  sin  and  redemption,  must  be  incomplete,  unreal, 
and  misleading.  Also,  since  the  social  gospel  hence- 
forth is  to  be  an  Important  part  of  our  Christian  mes- 
sage, its  chief  convictions  must  be  embodied  in  these  doc- 
trines in  some  organic  form. 

Now,  the  doctrines  of  sin  and  salvation  are  the  start- 
ing-point and  goal  of  Christian  theology.  Every  es- 
sential change  or  enlargement  in  them  is  bound  to  affect 
related  doctrines  also.  It  will  be  the  object  of  the  re- 
maining chapters  of  the  book  to  indicate  how  the  social 
gospel  would  re-act  on  the  doctrine  of  God,  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  and  inspiration,  of  the  sacraments,  of  eschatology, 
and  of  the  atonement. 

^  The  conception  of  God  held  by  a  social  group  is  a  so- 
cial product.  Even  if  it  originated  in  the  mind  of  3 
solitary  thinker  or  prophet,  as  soon  as  it  becomes  the 
property  of  a  social  group,  it  takes  on  the  qualities  of 
that  group.  If,  for  instance,  a  high  and  spiritual  idea 
167 


l68  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE   SOCIAL    GOSPEL 

of  God  is  brought  to  a  people  ignorant  and  accustomed 
to  superstitious  methods  of  winning  the  favour  or  help  of 
higher  beings,  it  will  soon  be  coarsened  and  materialized. 
The  changes  in  the  Hebrew  conception  of  God  were  the 
result  of  the  historical  experiences  of  the  nation  and 
its  leaders.     The  Christian  idea  of  God  has  also  had  its 
ups  and  downs  in  the  long  and  varied  history  of  Chris- 
tian civilization. 
I      A  fine  and  high  conception  of  God  is  a  social  achieve- 
I  ment  and  a  social  endowment.     It  becomes  part  of  the 
i  spiritual  inheritance  common  to  all  individuals  in  that 
religious  group.     If  every  individual  had  to  work  out  his 
idea  of  God  on  the  basis  of  his  own  experiences  and  in- 
tuitions only,  it  would  be  a  groping  quest,  and  most  of  us 
would  see  only  the  occasional  flitting  of  a  distant  light. 
By  the  end  of  our  life  we  might  have  arrived  at  the 
stage  of  voodooism  or  necromancy.     Entering  into  a  high 
conception  of  God,  such  as  the  Christian  faith  offers  us,  is 
like  entering  a  public  park  or  a  public  gallery  of  art  and 
[sharing  the  common  wealth.     When  we  learn  from  the 
f  gospels,  for  instance,  that  God  is  on  the  side  of  the  poor, 
j  and  that  he  proposes  to  view  anything  done  or  not  done 
I  to  them  as  having  been  done  or  not  done  to  him,  such 
I  a  revelation  of  solidarity  and  humanity  comes  with  a  re- 
I  generating  shock  to  our  selfish  minds.     Any  one  studying 
|life  as  it  is  on  the  basis  of  real  estate  and  bank  clearings, 
|would  come  to  the  conclusion  that  God  is  on  the  side  of 
■the  rich.     It  takes  a  revelation  to  see  it  the  other  way. 

Wherever  we  encounter  such  a  strain  of  social  feeling 
in  our  conceptions  of  God,  it  is  almost  sure  to  run  straight 


THE    CONCEPTION    OF    GOD  169 

back  either  to  Jesus  or  the  prophets.  The  Hebrew  proph- 
ets were  able  to  reaHze  God  in  that  way  because  they 
were  part  of  a  nation  which  had  preserved  the  traditions 
of  primitive  fraternal  democracy.  The  prophets  empha- 
sized God's  interest  in  righteousness  and  solidarity  be- 
cause they  were  making  a  fight  to  save  their  people  from 
the  landlordism  and  oppression  under  which  other  peoples 
have  wilted  and  degenerated.  When,  therefore,  we  to- 
day feel  the  moral  thrill  of  Hebrew  theism,  we  are  the 
heirs  and  beneficiaries  of  one  untamed  nation  of  moun- 
tain-dwellers. When  such  a  conception  of  God  is  trans- 
mitted to  other  nations  or  to  later  times,  it  is  the  expor- 
tation of  the  most  precious  commodity  a  nation  can  pro- 
duce. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  a  conception  of  God  originates 
among  the  exploiting  classes  in  an  age  of  despotism,  it  is 
almost  certain  to  contain  germs  of  positive  sinfulness 
which  will  Infect  all  to  whom  it  is  transmitted. 

Christianity  is  an  old  religion.  Its  youth  was  lived  in 
the  midst  of  a  matured  and  dying  imperial  despotism.  At 
first  it  was  an  Illegal  organization,  suppressed  by  the  Em- 
pire, and  in  turn  the  Empire  was  described  in  our  Apoca- 
lypse as  "  the  Beast."  This  hostility  was  a  saving  ele- 
ment w^hlch  made  the  Church  somewhat  immune  to  the 
despotic  Influences,  as  long  as  it  lasted.  But  in  time  the 
Church  came  under  the  control  and  spiritual  influence  of 
the  upper  classes,  and  finally  of  the  Roman  State.  We 
know  that  the  effects  of  this  social  environment  w-ere 
wrought  into  the  constitutional  structure  of  the  Church. 
The  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  still  the  religious  replica 
of  the  Roman  imperial  organization.     Harnack  thinks 


I/O  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

this  is  the  characterization  which  comes  closest  to  its  real 
nature.  Did  this  environment  also  influence  the  theo- 
logical and  religious  conceptions  about  God  ? 

Later  the  Western  Church  passed  through  the  age  of 
feudalism.  Feudalism  was  a  social  order  in  which  the 
military,  judicial,  and  executive  powers  were  under  the 
control  of  the  same  class  which  controlled  the  one  great 
source  of  wealth  at  that  time,  the  agricultural  land. 
What  such  a  combination  of  private  property  power  and 
governmental  powers  of  coercion  comes  to  was  brought 
home  to  us  by  the  revelations  about  the  rubber  trade 
in  the  Belgian  Congo  a  few  years  ago.  Of  this  feudal 
social  order  the  Church  was  an  integral  and  active  part. 
The  temper  and  attitude  of  the  dominant  part  of  the 
clergy  was  deeply  affected  by  this  social  environment. 
Did  it  also  shape  the  conception  of  God?  Did  it  create 
habits  of  mind  which  came  out  in  the  religious  appeals, 
the  illustrations  and  arguments  used,  and  the  tacit  pre- 
suppositions of  all  argument? 

Our  imagination  has  only  a  short  reach.  In  conceiv- 
ing a  higher  world  we  have  to  take  the  familiar  properties 
and  figures  of  our  material  world,  and  enlarge  and  re- 
fine them  as  best  we  can.  As  long  as  kings  and  gover- 
nors were  the  greatest  human  beings  in  the  public  eye, 
it  was  inevitable  that  their  image  should  be  superimposed 
on  the  idea  of  God.  Court  language  and  obeisances 
were  used  in  worship  and  when  men  reasoned  about  God, 
they  took  their  illustrations  and  analogies  from  those  who 
were  a  close  second  to  God. 

Athanasius,  for  instance,  in  order  to  explain  how  the 


THE    CONCEPTION   OF   GOD  Ijl 

incarnation  could  save  the  human  race  from  death  and 
give  immortal  life,  says  that  when  a  great  king  takes  resi- 
dence in  one  house  in  a  city,  the  whole  city  enjoys  great 
honour  and  is  not  in  danger  from  any  enemy  or  bandit 
invasion.  In  the  same  way  the  physical  presence  of  the 
incarnate  Logos  dispelled  the  evil  of  death.  This  is 
one  of  the  principal  arguments  in  his  mind.  But  in  fact 
it  is  no  argument  at  all  except  on  monarchical  assump- 
tions. 

In  his  epoch-making  book,  "  Cur  Deus  Homo,"  Anselm 
bases  his  discussion  on  the  proposition  that  God's 
"honour"  has  been  violated  by  human  sin.  Man  is 
wholly  subject  to  God,  and  bound  to  fulfil  all  his  demands. 
If  he  falls  short,  God  is  under  no  obligation  to  show  him 
favour,  and  must  exact  satisfaction  for  the  violation  of 
his  honour.  He  can  not  simply  forgive  sin.  It  is  not 
enough  if  the  sinner  henceforth  performs  his  whole  duty. 
"  Satisfaction  "  must  be  rendered  by  some  adequate  work 
of  merit  over  and  above  the  legal  requirements  of  God. 
This  equivalent  man  is  unable  to  render.  Christ  is  able. 
On  this  basis  Anselm  builds  his  theory  of  the  atonement. 
It  has  often  been  pointed  out  that  Anselm  derived  his 
idea  of  "  satisfaction  "  from  the  Teutonic  practice  of  com- 
muting physical  punishment  into  a  financial  payment.^  I 
think  Anselm,  an  Italian  and  a  churchman,  was  also  in- 
fluenced by  the  "  satisfactions  "  in  the  penitential  prac- 
tice of  the  Church.  But  beyond  all  these  contemporary 
influences  of  law  and  custom  was  the  pervasive  impres- 

iThis  was  first  established  by  my  friend  Professor  Hermann 
Cremer  in  his  monograph.  "  Die  Wurzeln  des  anselmischen  Satis- 
factionsbegriffes."     Studien  und  Kritiken,  1880. 


172  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

sion  of  autocratic  power  and  monarchical  self-assertion, 
which  rates  an  offence  against  the  members  of  the  royal 
family  or  against  the  governing  class  far  more  highly 
than  other  crimes,  and  makes  the  king's  ''  honour  "  a 
concern  for  which  nations  must  go  to  war. 

God's  right  of  arbitrary  decision,  which  has  been  as- 
serted in  many  connections,  runs  back  to  the  same  auto- 
cratic sources.  Duns  Scotus  and  his  followers  even  held 
that  the  death  of  Christ  was  necessary  only  because  God 
declared  it  necessary.  If  he  had  been  willing  to  accept 
the  obedience  of  some  good  angel,  that  too  would  have 
sufficed.  We  are  most  familiar  with  the  arbitrary  power 
of  God  in  the  doctrine  of  election.  The  right  of  God  to 
select  some  individuals  for  eternal  life  and  leave  others 
to  eternal  punishment,  entirely  apart  from  any  question 
of  personal  merit  or  demerit,  was  always  based  on  the 
ground  of  the  "  sovereignty  "  of  God,  that  is,  the  divine 
autocracy.  If  a  city  rebelled,  all  lives  were  forfeited;  if 
the  King  had  only  50  councillors  hung,  or  every  tenth 
citizen  sold  into  slavery,  it  was  an  act  of  royal  clemency 
worthy  of  praise.  By  the  fall  all  men  were  in  a  state 
of  damnation;  if  God  elected  some  to  salvation  and  left 
the  others  as  they  were,  it  was  divine  grace ;  nor  was  he 
under  obligation  to  explain  his  reasons  in  picking  the 
favoured. 

Scholastic  arguments  reach  few  people;  imaginative 
pictures  of  spiritual  ideas  are  subtle  and  pervasive.  God 
was  Imagined  far  above.  In  an  upper  part  of  the  universe, 
remote  from  humanity  but  looking  down  on  us,  fully 
aware  of  all  we  do,  Interfering  when  necessary,  but  very 
distinct.     In  Greek  theology  this  distinctness  was  due  to 


THE    CONCEPTION    OF    GOD  I73 

philosophical  influences.  In  popular  theology  the  re- 
moteness of  great  men  perhaps  had  more  to  do  with  shap- 
ing this  idea  than  philosophy. 

The  sense  of  fear  which  has  pervaded  religion  has 
doubtless  been,  at  least  in  part,  a  psychological  result  of 
the  despotic  attitude  of  parents,  of  school-masters,  of 
priests,  and  of  officials  all  the  way  from  the  town  beadle 
to  the  king.  To  uncounted  people  God  has  not  been  the 
great  Comforter  but  the  great  Terror.  The  main  con- 
cern in  religion  was  to  escape  from  his  handc.  Luther 
longed  that  he  "  might  at  last  have  a  gracious  God  " — 
eincn  gnddigen  Gott;  the  word  is  the  same  which  was 
applied  to  princes  and  nobles  when  they  were  good- 
natured.  Luther  sweated  with  fear  when  he  walked 
alongside  of  the  body  of  the  Lord  in  a  Corpus  Christi 
procession.  To  what  extent  was  this  due  to  the  fact  that 
he  was  constantly  beaten  by  his  parents  and  by  his  school- 
masters, and  taught  to  be  afraid  of  everything?  Men 
enriched  the  Church  enormously  with  gifts  of  land  as  in- 
surance premiums  that  God  would  not  do  anything  horri- 
ble to  them.  When  farmers  are  afraid  enough  to  part 
with  land,  it  must  be  a  deep  fear. 

The  mediaeval  methods  of  earning  religious  merit  and 
of  securing  intercession  were  the  product  of  fear  and  a 
close  duplicate  of  the  conditions  existing  under  economic 
and  political  despotism.  God  was  a  feudal  lord,  holding 
his  tenants  in  a  grip  from  which  there  was  no  escape,  ex- 
acting what  was  due  to  him,  and  putting  the  delinquent 
in  a  hot  prison  which  was  even  worse  than  the  terrible 
holes  underneath  the  duke's  castle.  By  special  self-de- 
nial the  religious  peon  could  win  "  merit "  to  offset  his 


174  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

delinquencies.  The  saints  and  the  blessed  Virgin  had 
much  merit.  The  Church  had  power  to  assign  some  of 
this  to  those  who  stood  in  with  the  Church.  The  inter- 
cession of  the  saints  counted ;  every  one  knew  that  it  was 
a  great  thing  for  a  poor  man  if  a  nobleman  spoke  for 
him  to  the  judge ;  it  would  be  so  in  heaven  too.  Things 
go  by  favour;  the  more  aristocracy,  the  more  pull. 

Thus  the  social  relations  in  which  men  lived,  affected 
their  conceptions  about  God  and  his  relations  to  men. 
Under  tyrannous  conditions  the  idea  of  God  was  neces- 
sarily tainted  with  the  cruel  hardness  of  society.  This 
spiritual  influence  of  despotism  made  even  the  face  of 
Christ  seem  hard  and  stern.  The  outlook  into  the  future 
life  was  like  a  glimpse  into  a  chamber  of  torture. 

The  conflict  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  with  autocratic 
conceptions  of  God  is  therefore  part  of  the  struggle  of 
humanity  with  autocratic  economic  and  political  condi- 
tions. This  carries  the  social  movement  into  theology. 
Theologians  therewith  have  their  share  in  redeeming  hu- 
manity from  the  reign  of  tyranny  and  fear,  and  if  we 
do  not  do  our  share  emphatically  and  with  a  will,  where 
do  we  belong,  to  the  Kingdom  of  God  or  the  Kingdom 
of  Evil?  The  worst  form  of  leaving  the  naked  un- 
clothed, the  hungry  unfed,  and  the  prisoners  uncom- 
forted,  is  to  leave  men  under  a  despotic  conception  of 
God  and  the  universe;  and  what  will  the  Son  of  Man  do 
to  us  theologians  when  we  gather  at  the  Day  of  Doom? 

Here  we  see  one  of  the  highest  redemptive  services  of 
Jesus  to  the  human  race.  \Vhen  he  took  God  by  the 
hand  and  called  him  "our  Father,"  he  democratizeTthe 


THE   CONCEPTION    OF   GOD  I75 

conception  of  God.  He  disconnected  the  idea  from  the 
coercive  and  predatory  State,  and  transferred  it  to  the 
realm  of  family  life,  the  chief  social  embodiment  of  sol- 
idarity and  love.  He  not  only  saved  humanity ;  he  saved 
God.  He  gave  God  his  first  chance  of  being  loved  and 
of  escaping  from  the  worst  misunderstandings  conceiv- 
able. The  value  of  Christ's  idea  of  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  is  realized  only  by  contrast  to  the  despotic  ideas 
which  it  opposed  and  was  meant  to  displace.  We  have 
classified  theology  as  Greek  and  Latin,  as  Catholic  and 
Protestant.  It  is  time  to  classify  it  as  despotic  and  dem- 
ocratic. From  a  Christian  point  of  view  that  is  a  more 
decisive  distinction. 

Paul  has  preserved  for  us  the  deep  impression  of  libera- 
tion and  relief  which  the  Christian  idea  of  God  made  on 
him  and  his  contemporaries:  "For  (when  you  became 
Christians)  you  did  not  receive  the  spirit  of  slavery  to 
fill  you  with  fear  once  more,  but  you  received  the  spirit  of 
sonship  which  leads  us  to  cry,  '  Our  Father.'  "  The 
Gnostics,  some  of  whom  were  exceedingly  able  minds, 
attracted  to  Christianity  by  its  spiritual  contents,  be- 
lieved that  Christ  had  for  the  first  time  in  cosmic  history 
brought  to  mankind  a  revelation  of  the  real  God.  All 
the  other  God-ideas  had  been  counterfeits  and  carica- 
tures imposed  on  humanity  by  lower  and  evil  spiritual 
beings  to  enslave  them.  This  is  a  striking  expression  of 
the  feeling  that  the  God  mirrored  in  the  teaching  and 
person  of  Christ  was  in  a  wholly  different  class  from  all 
others. 

Of  course  the  Christian  conception  of  God  was  not 
kept  pure.     The  pall  of  darkness  rising  from  despotic 


1/6  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

society  constantly  obscured  and  eclipsed  it.  The  imagery 
of  coercion  and  tyranny  always  suggested  itself  anew. 
The  triumph  of  the  Christian  idea  of  God  will  never  be 
complete  as  long  as  economic  and  political  despotism  pre- 
vail. 

The  value  of  the  Reformation  should  be  re-assessed 
from  this  point  of  view.  Luther  tore  the  idea  of  "  merit  " 
out  of  theology.  Christ  alone  had  merit.  By  his  blood 
he  had  paid  the  whole  debt  once  for  all.  Man  need  not 
earn  merit.  He  can  not  earn  merit.  It  would  be  a  sin 
for  him  to  try.  That  ended  the  contract  labour  system 
in  religion.  God  was  reconciled.  He  had  been  angry  but 
he  was  now  kind  and  ready  to  forgive.  The  sinner  need 
only  believe  and  accept  the  great  transaction  made  on  his 
behalf.  That  ended  the  reign  of  fear  for  those  who  un- 
derstood. The  saints  and  their  intercession  were  dis- 
missed ;  they  never  had  any  merit  either ;  the  sinner  could 
deal  with  God  and  Christ  direct.  Purgatory  was  gone; 
only  hell  proper  remained.  It  was  a  religious  Seisach- 
theia,  like  that  in  Athens  under  Solon's  laws,  a  great  un- 
loading, a  revolution  in  the  field  of  the  spiritual  life,  and 
the  condition  for  the  coming  of  political  and  economic  lib- 
erty. 

But  the  restoration  of  the  Christian  conception  of  God 
was  by  no  means  complete.  Despotic  government  was 
still  in  full  swing  when  the  Reformation  theology  was 
written.  Luther  and  Calvin  were  not  personally  in  sym- 
pathy with  democracy.  The  age  of  absolutism  and  of 
Louis  XIV  was  just  ahead.     The  long  era  of  witch-trials 


THE    CONCEPTION    OF    GOD  I77 

had  just  begun.  The  spell  of  fear  was  broken  only  for  a 
few.  The  fundamental  assumptions  about  God  re- 
mained. The  inherited  forensic  terminology  of  theology 
suggested  the  old  lines  of  thought.  As  long  as  religion 
borrows  its  terms  from  the  procedure  of  law-courts,  the 
spirit  of  coercion  and  terror  leaks  in.  Legal  ideas  are 
not  congruous  with  the  Christian  consciousness  of  salva- 
tion. The  idea  of  "  justification  "  did  not  come  to  us 
from  Jesus  and  it  does  not  blend  well  with  his  way  of 
thinking.  For  Paul  and  Luther  "  justification  by  faith  " 
was  an  emancipating  idea ;  it  stood  for  an  immense  sim- 
plification and  sweetening  of  the  process  of  salvation. 
They  used  the  terminology  of  legalism  to  deny  its  spirit. 
To  us,  who  are  not  under  the  consciousness  of  Jewish  or 
Roman  Catholic  legality,  "  justification  "  does  not  convey 
the  same  sense  of  liberation,  but  the  phrase  is  now  a 
vehicle  by  which  legal  and  often  despotic  ideas  come  back 
to  plague  us. 

The  social  gospel  is  God's  predestined  agent  to  con- 
tinue what  the  Reformation  began.  It  arouses  intelli- 
gent hatred  of  oppression  and  the  reign  of  fear,  and 
teaches  us  to  prize  liberty  and  to  love  love.  Therefore 
those  whose  religious  life  has  been  influenced  by  the  so- 
cial gospel  are  instinctively  out  of  sympathy  with  auto- 
cratic conceptions  of  God.  They  sense  the  spiritual  taint 
which  goes  out  from  such  ideas.  They  know  that  these 
religious  conceptions  are  used  to  make  autocratic  social 
conditions  look  tolerable,  necessary,  and  desirable.  Like 
Paul,  the  social  gospel  has  not  ''  received  the  spirit  of 
bondage  again  unto  fear."     It  is  wholly  in  sympathy  with 


iy8  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE   SOCIAL    GOSPEL 

the  conception  of  the  Father  which  Jesus  revealed  to  us 
by  his  words,  by  his  personality,  and  by  his  own  relations 
to  the  Father. 

This  reformatory  and  democratizing  influence  of  the 
social  gospel  is  not  against  religion  but  for  it.  The  worst 
thing  that  could  happen  to  God  would  be  to  remain  an 
autocrat  while  the  world  is  moving  toward  democracy. 
He  would  be  dethroned  with  the  rest.  For  one  man  who 
has  forsaken  religion  through  scientific  doubt,  ten  have 
forsaken  it  in  our  time  because  it  seemed  the  spiritual  op- 
ponent of  liberty  and  the  working  people.  This  feeling 
v^ill  deepen  as  democracy  takes  hold  and  becomes  more 
than  a  theory  of  government.  We  have  heard  only  the 
political  overture  of  democracy,  played  by  fifes ;  the  eco- 
nomic numbers  of  the  program  are  yet  to  come,  and  they 
will  be  performed  with  trumpets  and  trombones. 

The  Kingdom  of  God  is  the  necessary  background  for 
the  Christian  idea  of  God.  The  social  movement  is  one 
of  the  chief  ways  in  which  God  is  revealing  that  he  lives 
and  rules  as  a  God  that  loves  righteousness  and  hates  in- 
iquity. A  theological  God  who  has  no  interest  in  the 
conquest  of  justice  and  fraternity  is  not  a  Christian.  It 
is  not  enough  for  theology  to  eliminate  this  or  that  auto- 
cratic trait.  Its  God  must  join  the  social  movement. 
The  real  God  has  been  in  it  long  ago.  The  development 
of  a  Christian  social  order  would  be  the  highest  proof 
of  God's  saving  power.  The  failure  of  the  social  move- 
ment would  impugn  his  existence. 

The  old  conception  that  God  dwells  on  high  and  is 
distinct  from  our  human  life  was  the  natural  basis  for 


V' 


THE    CONCEPTION    OF   GOD  I79 

autocratic  and  arbitrary  ideas  about  him.  On  the  other 
hand  the  rehgious  beHef  that  he  is  immanent  in  human-  \y<^ 
ity  is  the  natural  basis  for  democratic  ideas  about  him. 
When  he  was  far  above,  he  needed  vice-gerents  to  rule 
for  him,  popes  by  divine  institution  and  kings  by  divine 
right.  If  he  lives  and  moves  in  the  life  of  mankind,  he 
can  act  directly  on  the  masses  of  men.  A  God  v^ho 
strives  within  our  striving,  who  kindles  his  flame  in  our 
intellect,  sends  the  impact  of  his  energy  to  make  our  will 
restless  for  righteousness,  floods  our  sub-conscious  mind 
with  dreams  and  longings,  and  always  urges  the  race  on 
toward  a  higher  combination  of  freedom  and  solidarity, 
—  that  would  be  a  God  with  whom  democratic  and  re- 
ligious men  could  hold  converse  as  their  chief  fellow- 
worker,  the  source  of  their  energies,  the  ground  of  their 
hopes. 

Platonic  philosophy  in  the  first  century  made  God  so 
transcendent  that  it  had  to  devise  the  Logos-idea  to  bridge 
the  abyss  between  the  silent  depths  of  God  and  this  world, 
and  to  enable  God  to  create  and  to  reveal  himself.  The- 
ology shrank  from  imputing  suffering  to  God.  Patripas- 
sianism  seemed  a  self-evident  heresy.  To-day  men  want 
to  think  of  God  as  close  to  them,  and  spiritually  kin  tO' 
them,  the  Father  of  all  spirits.  Eminent  theologians  in- 
sist that  God  has  always  suffered  with  and  for  mankind 
and  that  the  cross  is  a  permanent  law  of  God's  nature: 
"  The  lamb  has  been  slain  from  the  beginning  of  the 
world."  Through  the  conception  of  evolution  and 
through  the  social  movement  we  have  come  to  see  human 
life  in  its  totality,  and  our  consciousness  of  God  is  the 
spiritual  counterpart  of  our  social  consciousness.     Some, 


l8o  A   THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

apparently,  would  be  willing  to  think  of  God  as  less  than 
omnipotent  and  omniscient  if  only  he  were  working  hard 
with  us  for  that  Kingdom  which  is  the  only  true  Democ- 
racy. 

Two  points  still  demand  discussion.  The  first  is  the 
problem  of  suffering. 

The  existence  of  innocent  suffering  impugns  the  justice 
and  benevolence  of  God,  both  of  which  are  essential  in  a 
Christian  conception  of  God. 

The  simplest  solution  is  to  deny  the  existence  of  unjust 
suffering;  to  trust  that  good  and  ill  are  allotted  accord- 
ing to  desert;  and  if  the  righteous  Job  suffers  great  dis- 
aster, to  search  for  his  secret  sin.  This  explanation  broke 
down  before  the  facts.  How  about  the  man  born  blind? 
What  personal  sin  had  merited  his  calamity? 

Dualism  took  the  other  extreme.  It  acknowledged 
that  the  good  suffer,  and  stressed  the  fact.  But  it  ex- 
culpated the  good  God  by  making  the  evil  God  the  author 
of  this  world,  or  at  least  its  present  lord. 

Christianity  has  combined  several  explanations  of  suf- 
fering. It  grounds  it  in  general  on  the  prevalence  of  sin 
since  the  fall.  It  has  ascribed  a  malignant  power  of 
afflicting  the  righteous  to  Satan  and  his  servants.  It  has 
taken  satisfaction  when  justice  was  vindicated  in  some 
striking  case  of  goodness  or  wickedness.  It  has  held  out 
a  hope  of  a  public  vindication  of  the  righteous  in  the 
great  judgment,  and  of  an  equalization  of  their  lot  by 
their  bliss  in  heaven  and  the  suffering  of  the  wicked. 
(This  element,  however,  was  weakened  in  Protestantism 
by  the  disappearance  of  purgatory  and  the  tacit  assump- 


THE    CONCEPTION    OF    GOD 


i8i 


tion  that  all  who  are  saved  at  all  will  enjoy  an  equal  bliss. 
Purgatory  was  a  great  balancer  and  equalizer.)  Finally, 
Christianity  has  taught  that  God  allots  suffering  with  wise 
and  loving  intent,  tempering  it  according  to  our  strength, 
relieving  it  in  response  to  our  prayer,  and  using  it  to 
chasten  our  pride,  to  win  us  from  earthliness  to  himself, 
and  to  prepare  us  for  heaven.  This  interpretation  does 
not  assert  the  justice  of  every  suffering,  taken  by  itself, 
but  does  maintain  its  loving  intention. 

All  these  are  powerful  and  comforting  considerations. 
But  they  are  shaken  by  the  bulk  of  the  unjust  suffering  in 
sight  of  the  modern  mind.  These  Christian  ideas  are 
largely  true  as  long  as  we  look  at  a  normal  village  com- 
munity and  its  individuals  and  famihes.  But  they  are 
jarred  by  mass  disasters.  The  optimism  of  the  age  of 
rationalism  was  shaken  by  the  Lisbon  earthquake  in  1755, 
when  ^0,000  people  were  killed  together,  just  and  unjust. 
The  War  has  deeply  affected  the  religious  assurance  of 
our  own  time,  and  will  lessen  it  still  more  when  the  ex- 
citement is  over  and  the  aftermath  of  innocent  suffering 
becomes  clear.  But  that  impression  of  undeserved  mass 
misery  which  the  war  has  brought  home  to  the  thought- 
less, has  long  been  weighing  on  all  who  understood  the 
social  conditions  of  our  civiHzation.  The  sufferings  of 
a  single  righteous  man  could  deeply  move  the  psalmists 
or  the  poet  of  Job.  To-day  entire  social  classes  sit  in  the 
ashes  and  challenge  the  justice  of  the  God  who  has  af- 
flicted them  by  fathering  the  present  social  system.  The 
moral  and  religious  problem  of  suffering  has  entered  on 
a  new  stage  with  the  awakening  of  the  social  conscious- 
ness and  the  spread  of  social  knowledge. 


1 82  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

If  God  stands  for  the  present  social  order,  how  can  we 
defend  him?  We  can  stand  the  pain  of  travail,  of  physi- 
cal dissolution,  of  earthquakes  and  accidents.  These  are 
the  price  we  pay  for  the  use  of  a  fine  planet  with  lovely 
appurtenances  and  for  a  wonderful  body.  We  can  also 
accept  with  reasonable  resignation  the  mental  anguish  of 
unrequited  love,  of  foiled  ambition,  or  of  the  emptiness 
of  life.  These  are  the  risks  we  run  as  possessors  of  a 
highly  organized  personality  amid  a  world  of  men.  But 
we  can  not  stand  for  poor  and  laborious  people  being  de- 
prived of  physical  stature,  youth,  education,  human  equal- 
ity, and  justice,  in  order  to  enable  others  to  live  luxurious 
lives.  It  revolts  us  to  see  these  conditions  perpetuated 
by  law  and  organized  force,  and  palliated  or  justified  by 
the  makers  of  public  opinion.  None  of  the  keys  offered 
by  individualistic  Christianity  fit  this  padlock. 

The  social  gospel  supplies  an  explanation  of  this  class 
<  of  human  suffering.     Society  is  so  integral  that  when  one 
j  man  sins,  other  men  suffer,  and  when  one  social  class  sins, 
I  the  other  classes  are  involved  in  the  suffering  which  fol- 
;  lows  on  that  sin.     The  more  powerful  an  individual  is, 
;•  the  more  will  he  involve  others;  the  more  powerful  a 
]  class  is,  the  more  will  it  be  able  to  unload  its  own  just 
f  suffering  on  the  weaker  classes.     These  sufferings  are 
,^  not  "  vicarious  " ;  they  are  solidaristic.  • 
*      Our  solidarity  is  a  beneficent  part  of  human  life.     It  is 
the  basis  for  our  greatest  good.     If  our  community  life 
is  righteous  and  fraternal,  we  are  enriched  and  enlarged 
by  being  bound  up  with  it.     But,  by  the  same  law,  if  our 
community  is  organized  in  a  way  that  permits,  encour- 
ages, or  defends  predatory  practices,  then  the  larger  part 


THE    CONCEPTION    OF    GOD  183 

of  its  members  are  through  soHdarity  caged  to  be  eaten 
by  the  rest,  and  to  suffer  what  is  both  unjust  and  useless. 

It  follows  that  ethically  it  is  of  the  highest  importance 
to  prevent  our  beneficent  solidarity  from  being  twisted 
into  a  means  of  torture. 

Physical  pain  serves  a  beneficent  purpose  by  warning  us 
of  the  existence  of  abnormal  conditions.  It  fulfils  its 
purpose  when  it  compels  the  individual  to  search  out  the 
cause  of  pain  and  to  keep  his  body  in  health.  If  he 
takes  "  dope  "  to  quiet  the  consciousness  of  pain  without 
healing  the  causes,  the  beneficent  purpose  of  pain  is  frus- 
trated. 

^  Social  suffering  serves  social  healing.  If  the  sense  of 
:ommon  humanity  is  strong  enough  to  set  the  entire  social 
body  in  motion  on  behalf  of  those  who  suffer  without 
just  cause,  then  their  troubles  are  eased  and  the  whole 
oody  is  preserved  just  and  fraternal.  If  the  predatory 
forces  are  strong  enough  to  suppress  the  reactions 
against  injustice  and  inhumanity,  the  suffering  goes  on 
and  the  whole  community  is  kept  in  suicidal  evil.  To 
interpret  the  sufferings  imposed  by  social  injustice  in  in- 
dividualistic terms  as  the  divine  chastening  and  sanctifi- 
cation  of  all  the  individuals  concerned,  is  not  only  false 
but  profoundly  mischievous.  It  is  the  equivalent  of 
"  dope,"  for  it  silences  the  warning  which  the  suffering 
of  an  innocent  group  ought  to  convey  to  all  society  with- 
out abolishing  the  causes.  It  frustrates  the  only  chance 
of  redemptive  usefulness  which  the  sufferers  had. 

All  this  applies  to  our  conception  of  God.  The  idea 
of  solidarity,  when  once  understood,  acts  as  a  theodicy. 
None  of  us  would  want  a  world  without  organic  com- 


184  A   THEOLOGY   FOR    THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

munity  of  life,  any  more  than  we  would  want  a  world 
without  gravitation.  The  fact  that  a  careless  boy  falls 
down  stairs  does  not  condemn  gravitation,  nor  does  the 
existence  of  evil  community  life  condemn  God  who  con- 
stituted us  social  beings.  The  innocent  suffering  of  great 
groups  through  social  solidarity  simply  brings  home  to 
us  that  the  tolerance  of  social  injustice  is  an.  intolerable 
evil.  The  great  sin  of  men  is  to  resist  the  reformation 
of  predatory  society.  We  do  not  want  God  to  be  charged 
with'that  attitude.  A  conception  of  God  which  describes 
him  as  sanctioning  the  present  social  order  and  utilizing 
it  in  order  to  sanctify  its  victims  through  th^eir  suffering, 
without  striving  for  its  overthrow,  is  repugnant  to  our 
moral  sense.  Both  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New  Tes- 
tament characterizations  of  God's  righteousness  assure 
us  that  he  hates  with  steadfast  hatred  just  such  practices 
as  modern  communities  tolerate  and  promote.  If  we  can 
"'trust  th?  Bii)le,  God  is  against  capitalism,  its  methods, 
spirit,  and  results.  The  bourgeois  theologians  have  mis- 
represented our  revolutionary  God.  God  is  for  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  and  his  Kingdom  does  not  mean  in- 
justice and  the  perpetuation  of  innocent  suffering.  The 
best  theodicy  for  modern  needs  is  to  make  this  very  clear. 

r    Finally,  the  social  gospel  emphasizes  the  fact  that  God 
.  is  the  bond  of  racial  unity. 

Speaking  historically,  it  is  one  of  the  most  universal 
and  important  characteristics  of  religion  that  it  consti- 
tutes the  spiritual  bond  of  social  groups.  A  national  god 
was  always  the  exponent  of  national  solidarity.     A  com- 


THE    CONCEPTION    OF    GOD  1 85 

mon  religion  created  common  sympathies.  Full  moral 
obligation  stopped  at  the  religious  boundary  line.  The 
unusual  thing  about  the  Good  Samaritan  was  that  he  dis- 
regarded the  religious  cleavage  and  followed  the  call  of 
humanity  pure  and  simple. 

The  mingling  of  populations  and  religions  in  modern 
life  makes  the  influence  of  religion  less  noticeable,  but  it 
still  works  as  a  bond  of  sympathy.  It  is  easiest  to  trace 
it  where  the  religious  cleavage  coincides  with  the  racial 
or  political  cleavages.  The  French  Catholics  in  Quebec 
and  the  English  Protestants  in  Ontario;  the  Irish  and 
the  Ulstermen;  the  Catholic  Belgians  and  the  Protestant 
Dutch;  the  Latin  nations  of  America  and  the  United 
States ; —  the  mention  of  the  names  brings  up  the  prob- 
lem. The  Balkans  are  a  nest  of  antagonisms  partly  be- 
cause of  religious  differences.  It  has  been  fortunate  for 
the  American  negro  that  the  antagonism  of  race  and  so- 
cial standing  has  not  been  intensified  in  his  case  by  any 
difference  of  religion.^ 

The  spread  of  a  monotheistic  faith  and  the  recognition 
of  a  single  God  of  all  mankind  is  a  condition  of  an  ethical 
union  of  mankind  in  the  future.  This  is  one  of  the  long- 
range  social  effects  of  Christian  missions.  The  effects  of 
Christianity  will  go  far  beyond  its  immediate  converts. 
Every  competing  religion  will  be  compelled  to  emphasize 
its  monotheistic  elements  and  to  allow  its  polytheistic  in- 
gredients to  drop  to  a  secondary  stage. 

1  I  have  seen  Southern  pamphlets  undertaking  to  prove  that  the 
negroes  are  not  descended  from  Adam,  but  have  evolved  from 
African  jungle  beasts.  The  very  orthodox  authors  were  willing 
to  accept  the  heretical  philosophy  of  evolution  for  the  black  people, 


ISO  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

But  it  is  essential  to  our  spiritual  honesty  that  no  im- 
perialism shall  masquerade  under  the  cover  of  our  re- 
ligion. Those  who  adopt  the  white  man's  religion  come 
under  the  white  man's  influence.  Christianity  is  the  re- 
hgion  of  the  dominant  race.  The  native  religions  are  a 
spiritual  bulwark  of  defence,  independence,  and  loyalty. 
If  we  invite  men  to  come  under  the  same  spiritual  roof 
of  monotheism  with  us  and  to  abandon  their  ancient  shel- 
ters, let  us  make  sure  that  this  will  not  be  exploited  as 
a  trick  of  subjugation  by  the  Empires.  As  long  as  there 
are  great  colonizing  imperialisms  in  the  world,  the  propa- 
ganda of  Christianity  has  a  political  significance. 

God  is  the  common  basis  of  all  our  life.  Our  human 
personalities  may  seem  distinct,  but  their  roots  run  down 
into  the  eternal  life  of  God.  In  a  large  way  both  philos- 
ophy and  science  are  tending  toward  a  recognition  of  the 
truth  which  religion  has  felt  and  practised.  The  all- 
pervading  life  of  God  is  the  ground  of  the  spiritual  one- 
ness of  the  race  and  of  our  hope  for  its  closer  fellow- 
ship in  the  future. 

The  consciousness  of  solidarity,  therefore,  is  of  the 
essence  of  religion.  But  the  circumference  and  spacious- 
ness of  the  fellowship  within  it  differ  widely.  Every  dis- 
covery of  a  larger  fellowship  by  the  individual  brings  a 
glow  of  religious  satisfaction.  The  origin  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion  was  bound  up  with  a  great  transition  from 
a  nationalistic  to  an  international  religious  consciousness. 
Paul  was  the  hero  of  that  conquest.     The  Christian  God 

though  of  course  they  claimed  biblical  creation  for  the  white.  The 
purpose  of  this  religious  manoeuvre  is  to  cut  the  bond  of  human 
obligation  and  solidarity  established  by  religion,  and  put  the  negroes 
outside  the  protection  of  the  moral  law. 


THE    CONCEPTION    OF   GOD  187 

has  been  a  breaker  of  barriers  from  the  first.     All  who 
have  a  distinctively  Christian  experience  of  God  are  com- 
mitted to  the  expansion  of  human  fellowship  and  to  the 
overthrow  of  barriers.     To  emphasize  this  and  bring  it 
home  to  the  Christian  consciousness  is  part  of  the  mission 
of  the  social  gospel,  and  it  looks  to  theology  for  the  in- 
tellectual formulation  of  what  it  needs.  ^ 
We  have  discussed  three  points  in  this  chapter:  how| 
the  conception  of  God  can  be  cleansed  from  the  historic | 
accretions  of  despotism  and  be  democratized;  how  it  can  I 
be  saved  from  the  indictment  contained  in  the  unjust  suf-  | 
fering  of  great  social  groups ;  and  how  we  can  realize  God 
as  the  ground  of  social  unity.     Freedom,  justice,  solidar- 
ity are  among  the  aims  of  the  social  gospel.     It  needs  a 
theology  which  will  clearly  express  these  in  its  conception 
of  God.  i 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE   HOLY  SPIRIT,   REVELATION,   INSPIRATION,   PROPHECY 

The  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  one  of  the  most  re- 
ligious of  all  Christian  doctrines.  It  is  not  primarily  a 
product  of  reflection,  but  of  the  great  religious  emotions 
and  experiences.  Perhaps  for  that  very  reason  it  has 
been  relatively  a  neglected  section  of  doctrinal  theology. 
It  deals  with  the  most  intimate  and  mystic  experiences  of 
the  soul,  and  does  not  seem  to  belong  to  the  field  es- 
pecially cultivated  by  the  social  gospel. 

But  in  fact  the  social  nature  of  religion  is  clearly  de- 
monstrated in  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  prophets 
of  the  Old  Testament  were  not  lonely  torches  set  aflame 
by  the  spirit  of  God;  they  were  more  like  a  string  of 
electric  lights  along  a  road-side,  which,  though  far  apart, 
are  all  connected  and  caused  by  the  same  current.  They 
transmitted  not  only  their  ideas  but  their  spiritual  recep- 
tivity and  inspiration  to  one  another.  The  great  men 
of  whom  we  think  as  solitary  miracles  of  religious  power 
were  surrounded  and  upborne  in  their  day  by  religious 
groups  which  have  now  melted  back  into  oblivion.  Their 
prophetic  consciousness  was  awakened  and  challenged  by 
historic  events  affecting  the  social  group  to  which  they 
belonged.  "  The  burden  of  the  Lord  "  was  not  for  them- 
selves but  for  their  community.  They  knew  that  their 
i88 


THE    HOLY    SPIRIT,    REVELATION  1 89 

revelation  was  to  be  a  message.     Their  religious  experi- 
ences were  moments  of  intense  social  consciousness. 

The  Christian  Church  began  its  history  as  a  commun- 
ity of  inspiration.  The  new  thing  in  the  story  of  Pente- 
cost is  not  only  the  number  of  those  who  received  the 
tongue  of  fire  but  the  fact  that  the  Holy  Spirit  had  be- 
come the  common  property  of  a  group.  What  had 
seemed  to  some  extent  the  privilege  of  aristocratic  souls 
was  now  democratized.  The  spirit  was  poured  on  all 
flesh;  the  young  saw  visions,  the  old  dreamed  dreams; 
even  on  the  slave  class  the  spirit  was  poured.  The  char- 
ismatic life  of  the  primitive  Church  was  highly  impor- 
tant for  its  coherence  and  loyalty  in  the  crucial  days  of  its 
beginning.  It  was  a  chief  feeder  of  its  strong  affections, 
its  power  of  testimony,  and  its  sacrificial  spirit.  Re- 
ligion has  been  defined  as  "  the  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of 
man."  In  Christianity  it  became  also  the  life  of  God  in 
the  fellowship  of  man.  Thejnystic  experience  was 
socialized. 

The  doctrine  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  as  we  all 
know,  has  passed  through  profound  changes  in  recent 
years.  The  change  has  all  been  away  from  religious  in- 
dividualism and  toward  a  social  comprehension  of  the 
religious  facts. 

The  process  of  inspiration  was  formerly  conceived  as  a 
transaction  between  God  and  the  individual.  The  higher 
the  doctrine  of  inspiration,  the  more  solitary  was  the  in- 
spired individual.  It  would  have  defeated  the  purpose  of 
the  doctrine  to  admit  the  presence  of  outside  influences. 
Even  the  intellect  and  personality  of  the  recipient  were 


li? 


IQO  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

sometimes  represented  as  passive  and  quiescent.  Philo, 
whose  ideas  the  early  Church  followed,  said :  "  A 
prophet  gives  forth  nothing  at  all  of  his  own,  but  acts 
as  interpreter  at  the  prompting  of  another  in  all  his  utter- 
ances, and  as  long  as  he  is  under  inspiration  he  is  in  ig- 
norance, his  reason  departing  from  its  place,  and  yielding 
up  the  citadel  of  the  soul,  when  the  divine  Spirit  enters 
into  it  and  strikes  at  the  mechanism  of  the  voice."  In 
extreme  orthodoxy  it  was  a  liberal  concession  to  grant 
that  the  divine  power  utilized  and  respected  the  literary 
style  and  individual  outlook  of  the  writer. 

The  modern  conception  of  inspiration  not  only  recog- 
nizes the  free  operation  and  the  contributions  of  the  dis- 
tinctive psychical  equipment  of  the  inspired  person,  but 
seeks  in  every  way  to  get  beyond  the  individual  to  the 
social  group  which  produced  him,  to  the  spiritual  prede- 
cessors who  Inspired  him,  and  to  the  audience  which 
moved  him  because  he  hoped  to  move  it.  We  might 
characterize  the  progress  of  ihe  historical  study  of  re- 
ligion in  the  last  fifty  years  as  a  progressive  effort  to  in- 
terpret religious  individuals  by  their  social  contacts.  The 
great  work  of  biblical  criticism  has  been  to  place  every 
biblical  book  in  its  exact  historical  environment  as  a  pre- 
liminary to  understanding  its  religious  message.  The 
"  religions geschlchtliche  Methode "  takes  up  the  work 
where  the  critical  method  drops  it,  and  reaches  out  still 
further,  beyond  the  ideas  and  purposes  of  the  literary  per- 
son to  the  religious  drifts  and  desires  and  beliefs  of  his 
age,  to  which  he  more  or  less  consciously  reacted. 

Every  one  who  has  shared  in  the  results  of  this  work 
will  appreciate  how  helpful  and  fruitful  this  process  at  its 


THE    HOLY    SPIRIT,    REVELATION  IQI 

best  has  been.  It  has  opened  up  the  inspiration  of  the 
past  and  released  social  values  which  had  been  completely 
locked  away  under  the  individualistic  method  of  inter- 
pretation. The  historical  method  has  already  done  what 
the  social  gospel  might  wish  it  to  do.  Here  we  have  a 
completed  laboratory  experiment  proving  the  value  and 
efficiency  of  a  social  understanding  of  religion.  The  only 
question  is  whether  we  can  win  just  as  strong  a  sense  of 
the  presence  of  God  from  this  complicated  social  process 
of  inspiration,  as  when  God  was  believed  to  have  dic- 
tated the  books  by  a  psychological  miracle.  It  can  be 
done,  but  the  interpreter  needs  personal  acquaintance 
with  inspiration  to  do  it. 

In  another  direction,  however,  wt  have  not  yet  over- 
come the  narrowing  influence  of  the  old,  mechanical  views 
of  inspiration. 

Those  who  have  had  first-hand  experience  of  inspira- 
tion either  in  their  own  souls  or  in  the  life  of  others,  have 
always  combined  reverence  for  the  authority  of  the  word 
of  the  Lord  and  a  realization  of  the  human  frailty  and 
liabihty  to  error  in  the  prophet.  Paul  and  his  churches 
had  a  rich  experience  of  inspiration.  Writing  to  the 
Thessalonians  he  asserts  the  right  of  prophesying,  but 
takes  the  duty  of  critical  scrutiny  by  the  hearers  as  a 
matter  of  course:  "Quench  not  the  spirit  (in  your- 
selves) ;  despise  not  prophesying  (in  others)  ;  scrutinize 
all  utterances;  appropriate  what  is  good."  Inspiration 
did  not  involve  infallibility  when  men  knew  it  by  ex- 
perience. 

When  the  inspirationalism  of  the  primitive  Church  died 


192  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

out,  the  understanding  of  its  nature  grew  artificial,  just 
as  the  understanding  of  Old  Testament  inspiration  had 
become  centuries  earlier.  It  was  not  to  the  interest  of 
church  leaders  to  emphasize  that  the  laity  had  once  pos- 
sessed the  gift  of  inspiration  and  the  right  of  utterance. 
Consequently  the  realization  of  the  charismatic  life  of  the 
primitive  Church  was  allowed  to  fade  from  the  memory 
of  Christians.  The  apostles  alone  stood  out  in  the  his- 
torical perspective  as  the  possessors  of  inspiration. 
Their  human  frailties  and  fallibilities  were  forgotten  or 
suppressed;  they  were  conventionalized  and  fitted  with 
haloes.  Their  utterances  were  infallible.  Inspiration 
and  infallibility  were  almost  convertible  terms.  Being  so 
high  a  gift,  inspiration  was  strictly  circumscribed,  and 
was  supposed  to  have  ceased  when  the  canon  of  the  New 
Testament  was  completed.  This,  on  the  whole,  has  re- 
mained the  popular  orthodox  view  down  to  recent  times. 
Now,  so  high  a  conception  of  inspiration  discourages 
the  stirring  of  the  prophetic  spirit  in  living  men.  A  man 
might  well  claim  that  God  had  spoken  to  his  sOul  and  laid 
a  message  upon  him.  But  who  would  want  to  claim  that 
he  is  infallible?  Psychical  experiences  are  evoked  by  ex- 
pectancy. If  men  do  not  expect  to  be  regenerated,  few 
will  have  the  experience.  If  they  do  not  expect  to  be 
inspired,  few  will  make  their  way  single-handed  to  such 
an  experience.  The  Church  has  reversed  all  the  maxims 
of  Paul  except  the  last.  It  has  quenched  the  spirit;  it 
has  discountenanced  prophesying;  it  has  forbidden  intel- 
lectual scrutiny  of  inspiration  so  far  as  the  biblical  books 
were  concerned.  The  only  thing  it  encouraged  was  to 
cleave  to  that  which  is  good. 


THE    HOLY    SPIRIT,    REVELATION  I93 

The  old  view  of  inspiration  is  supposed  to  be  more 
deeply  religious  than  the  new.  It  did  involve  a  more 
reverent  and  passive  attitude  of  mind.  But  it  robbed  us 
of  part  of  our  consciousness  of  God.  A  religious  man 
knows  that  he  has  no  merit  of  his  own,  and  that  all  his 
righteousness  was  wrought  in  him  by  God.  To  suppose 
that  he  can  set  his  own  will  on  God  and  work  out  his  own : 
salvation  is  sub-christian.  We  ought  to  have  the  same 
consciousness  of  God's  influence  on  our  intellectual  com-, 
prehension  of  Christian  truth.  To  suppose  that  we  can 
work  out  a  living  knowledge  of  the  truth  from  a  sacred 
book  without  the  enlightening  energy  of  the  spirit  of  God^ 
is  sub-christian  and  rationalistic.  On  the  other  hand,  to 
be  conscious  of  the  divine  light,  to  listen  to  the  inner  voice, 
to  read  the  inspired  w^ords  of  the  Bible  with  an  answering 
glow  of  fire,  is  part  of  the  consciousness  of  God  to  which 
we  are  entitled.  There  are  many  degrees  of  clarity  and 
power  in  this  living  inspiration,  and  heavy  admixtures  of 
human  error,  passion,  and  false  sentiment,  but  the  same 
is  true  of  the  experiences  of  regeneration  and  sanctifica- 
tion.  It  is  the  business  of  the  Church  to  encourage,  tem- 
per, and  purify  the  intellectual,  as  well  as  the  emotional! 
and  volitional  experiences  of  its  members. 

At  this  point  the  social  gospel  coincides  with  the  most 
energetic  religious  consciousness.  Traditional  theology 
has  felt  the  need  of  inspired  prophets  and  apostles  chiefly 
in  order  to  furnish  the  system  of  doctrine  with  a  firm 
footing  of  inerrancy  and  infallibility.  The  doctrine  of 
inspiration  is  not  treated  as  part  of  the  glorious  results  of 
redemption,  and  as  the  Christian  salvation  of  the  human 


194  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

intellect,  but  as  part  of  the  prolegomena  of  theology. 
The  social  gospel,  on  the  other  hand,  feels  the  need  of 
present  inspiration  and  of  living  prophetic  spirits  in  order 
to  lead  humanity  toward  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
Wherever  the  Church  is  set  in  the  centre  and  her  aim  is  to 
keep  the  body  of  doctrine  intact  as  delivered  to  it,  inspira- 
tion will  be  located  at  the  beginning  of  the  line  of  tradi- 
tion, and  at  most  the  power  of  infallible  interpretation 
will  be  claimed  for  popes  and  church  councils.  Wherever 
the  Kingdom  of  God  is  set  to  the  front,  inspiration  will 
spontaneously  spring  into  life  at  the  points  where  the 
conflict  is  hot  and  active  in  the  present.  A  theology 
adapted  to  the  social  gospel,  therefore,  will  recognize  in- 
spiration as  an  indispensable  force  of  our  religion  and  an 
essential  equipment  of  redemption.  The  social  order  can 
not  be  saved  without  regenerate  men;  neither  can  it  be 
saved  without  inspired  men. 

The  value  of  the  regenerate  individual  for  the  advance- 
ment of  the  Kingdom  of  God  consists  largely  in  his 
prophetic  quality.  If  the  Holy  Spirit  works  on  his  soul 
so  that  he  has  a  vision  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  its 
higher  laws,  then  to  some  extent  he  will  be  living  ahead 
of  his  age.  In  the  qualities  of  his  personality  and  in  his 
judgments  of  men  and  events  he  will  be  a  witness  to  the 
divine  order  of  society,  and  will  challenge  the  right  of 
the  world  as  it  now  is.  If  this  prophetic  insight  is  not 
dulled  by  ignorance  and  made  erratic  by  eccentricities  of 
character,  but  is  guided  by  education  and  balance  of  char- 
acter, its  social  force  is  very  great. 

Individualistic  religion  has  bred  saints,  missionaries, 
pastors,  and  scholars,  but  few  prophets.     Some  of  its  so- 


THE    HOLY    SPIRIT,    REVELATION  1 95 

called  prophets  have  been  expounders  of  the  prophecy  of 
others.  Religions  of  authority  have  no  real  use  for 
prophets  except  to  furnish  a  supernatural  basis  for  doc- 
trine. Hence  prophecy  used  to  be  put  on  a  level  with 
miracles  as  "  evidences  of  the  Christian  religion." 
Where  the  main  interest  is  to  keep  doctrine  undisturbed, 
living  prophecy  seems  a  dangerous  and  unsettling  force. 
•  Genuine  prophecy  springs  up  where  fervent  religious 
experience  combines  with  a  democratic  spirit,  strong  so- 
cial feeling,  and  free  utterance.  Some  sense  of  antagon- 
ism between  the  will  of  God  and  the  present  order  of 
things  is  necessary  to  ignite  the  spirit  of  the  prophet. 

This  was  the  combination  which  produced  the  Hebrew 
prophets.  We  have  the  same  combination  in  those  mani- 
fold radical  bodies  which  preceded  and  accompanied  the 
Reformation.  They  all  tended  toward  the  same  type, 
the  type  of  primitive  Christianity.  Strong  fraternal  feel- 
ing, simplicity  and  democracy  of  organization,  more  or 
less  communistic  ideas  about  property,  an  attitude  of 
passive  obedience  or  conscientious  objection  toward  the 
coercive  and  militaristic  governments  of  the  time,  oppo- 
sition to  the  selfish  and  oppressive  Church,  a  genuine  faith 
in  the  practicability  of  the  ethics  of  Jesus,  and,  as  the 
secret  power  in  it  all,  belief  in  an  Inner  experience  of  re- 
generation and  an  inner  light  which  Interprets  the  outer 
word  of  God.  These  radical  bodies  did  not  produce  as 
many  great  Individuals  as  we  might  have  expected  be- 
cause their  Intellectuals  and  leaders  were  always  killed 
off  or  silenced.  But  their  communities  were  prophetic. 
They  have  been  the  forerunners  of  the  modern  world. 
They   stood    against   war,    against    capital    punishment. 


196  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

against  slavery,  and  against  coercion  in  matters  of  re- 
ligion before  others  thought  of  it.  It  was  largely  due 
to  their  influence  that  the  Puritan  Revolution  had  its 
prophetic  elements  of  leadership.  The  Free  Churches 
throughout  the  world,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
clearly  or  dimly,  have  passed  beyond  the  official  types  of 
orthodox  Protestantism  and  have  taken  on  some  of  the 
characteristics  of  the  early  radicals.  Great  church 
bodies  now  stand  as  a  matter  of  course  on  those  princi- 
ples of  freedom  and  toleration  which  only  the  boldest  once 
dared  to  assert.  The  power  of  leadership  is  with  those 
organizations  and  movements  which  have  some  prophetic 
qualities  and  trust  to  the  inner  light. 

To-day  it  is  the  social  gospel  which  has  the  demo- 
cratic outlook  and  the  sense  of  solidarity.  If  it  also  has 
spiritual  fervor,  it  will  have  prophetic  power. 

The  social  gospel  is  not  a  doctrine  turned  backward 
to  the  sources  of  authority,  but  a  faith  turned  forward 
to  its  task.  It  sees  before  it  the  Kingdom  of  Evil  to  be 
overcome,  and  the  Kingdom  of  God  to  be  established, 
and  it  cries  aloud  for  an  inspired  word  of  God  to  give 
faith  and  power  and  guidance.  If  theology  is  to  answer 
to  the  needs  of  the  social  gospel,  it  ought  to  assign  to 
prophecy  a  definite  place  among  the  permanent  forces  of 
redemption.  In  recognizing  the  need  of  inspiration  and 
prophecy  the  social  gospel  is  more  religious  than  the  or- 
thodox type,  and  more  positive  than  that  liberal  type  of 
theology  which  is  chiefly  interested  in  historical  criticism.^ 

1 1  shall  return  to  this  subject  once  more  at  the  end  of  the  last 
chapter. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

BAPTISM  AND  THE  LORD's  SUPPER 

The  sacraments  have  occupied  a  large  place  in  the  wor- 
ship and  life  of  the  Church,  and  a  correspondingly  wide 
room  in  theology.  The  Catholic  Church  is  the  institution 
of  sacramental  salvation.  The  Reformation  was  in  large 
part  a  movement  for  cleansing  the  sacramental  practices 
and  doctrines.  The  disastrous  split  between  the  Luth- 
eran and  Zwinglian  churches  was  due  to  differences  about 
the  significance  of  one  of  the  sacraments.  Large  his- 
torical denominational  bodies  have  formed  about  the  ef- 
fort to  restore  the  genuine  practice  and  doctrine  of  bap- 
tism. Evidently  the  conception  of  the  sacraments  has 
long  been  an  active  volcanic  region  in  theology.  The  old 
controversial  zeal  has  been  followed  by  relative  apathy. 
Except  under  "  High  Church  "  influences  the  importance 
of  the  sacraments  in  practical  church  life  seems  to  be  les- 
sening and  the  issues  are  being  forgotten. 

Can  the  religious  spirit  of  the  social  gospel  give  any| 
fresh  spiritual  meaning  to  the  ancient  ordinances,  or  addi 
anything  to  the  theological  interpretation  of  them?  l| 
confess  I  doubt  it.  The  two  fields  of  interest  lie  far  apart" 
at  present.  But  as  a  challenge  to  thought  perhaps  the 
following  considerations  may  have  some  use. 

When  the  act  of  baptism  was  initiated  by  John  the  Bap- 
tist and  continued  for  a  time  by  Jesus,  it  was  not  a  ritual 

IQ7 


198  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL 

act  of  individual  salvation,  but  an  act  of  dedication  to  a 
religious  and  social  movement.  Baptism  at  the  Jordan 
was  not  received  to  save  the  individual  by  himself,  or  in 
a  future  life;  it  was  received  in  view  of  the  impending 
Messianic  salvation  and  as  an  act  of  allegiance  to  a  new 
order  of  things.  The  baptism  of  John  can  not  be  separ- 
ated from  his  preaching;  the  former  received  its  meaning 
and  content  from  the  latter.  His  preaching  called  men 
to  repent  of  their  old  way  of  living,  to  quit  grafting,  and 
to  begin  to  live  in  fraternal  helpfulness.  Baptism  was 
the  dramatic  expression  of  an  inward  consent  and  alle- 
giance to  the  higher  standards  of  life  which  were  to  pre- 
vail in  the  Messianic  community.  It  was  the  symbol  of  a 
revolutionary  movement. 

There  is  no  indication  that  Jesus  or  his  disciples  prac- 
tised baptism  during  the  Galilean  period  of  his  work. 
When  the  practice  was  resumed  by  the  primitive  Church, 
it  was  once  more  an  act  of  obedience  and  faith  in  view 
of  the  impending  Messianic  Kingdom  at  the  return  of  the 
Lord.  The  ritual  act  now  got  its  ethical  interpretation 
from  the  remembered  sayings  of  the  Master  and  from  the 
fraternal  life  of  the  Christian  group. 

Baptism  was  profoundly  affected  by  the  great  change 
which  came  over  Christianity  when  it  left  its  Jewish  en- 
vironment and  was  assimilated  by  Greek  religious  and 
social  life.  It  was  gradually  filled  with  new  meanings. 
It  was  an  act  cancelling  the  guilt  of  all  past  sins ;  an  act  of 
regeneration;  an  act  of  exorcization,  cleansing  from  the 
defilement  of  pagan  worship  and  life.  But  it  was  less  and 
less  a  dedication  to  the  coming  Kingdom  of  God.  It 
still  had  a  great  social  significance,  for  it  was  the  act  by 


BAPTISM    AND    THE    LORD's    SUPPER 


199 


which  the  individual  stepped  out  of  pagan  society  and  into 
the  fellowship  of  the  Christian  group,  with  its  love,  its 
dangers,  and  its  limitations. 

This  change  in  the  meaning  and  content  of  baptism  was 
confirmed  by  the  spread  of  infant  baptism  since  the  mid- 
dle of  the  second  century.     The  immediate  cause  for  the 
baptism  of  young  children  was  the  belief  that  baptism 
IS  necessary  for  salvation,  combined  with  the  ever  urgent 
facts  of  infant  mortality.     Origen,  and  still  more  Au- 
gustine, tied  up  the  church  practice  with  the  doctrine  of 
original  sin.     Baptism  had  been  the  symbol  of  a  revolu- ^ 
tionary  hope,  an  ethical  act  which  determined  the  will  and  I 
life  of  the  person  receiving  it.     It  was  now  a  ceremonyl 
performed  on  a  babe  to  save  it  from  the  guilt  and  power!^ 
of  original  sin  and  to  assure  its  salvation  in  heaven  hi 
case  of  its  death. 

^  Here  again  new  social  elements  sprang  up.  The  prac- 
tical necessities  of  the  case  created  a  social  backing  for  • 
the  young  candidate.  Since  its  own  responses  were  still 
inarticulate,  grown-up  sponsors  recited  the  creed  and 
other  formulas  for  him,  .and  this  service  established  a 
social  relationship  which  often  lasted  for  life.  Since  the 
faith  of  the  child  was  still  undeveloped,  theology  taught 
that  the  sponsors  and  the  Church  were  to  supply  it. 

In  modern  time  much  finer  ideas  have  been  attached  to 
infant  baptism.  The  act  is  based  on  the  organic  unity  of 
the  family;  the  parents  thereby  dedicate  the  child  to  God 
and  pledge  themselves  to  give  it  Christian  nurture;  the 
child  is  by  baptism  incorporated  into  the  organism  of  the 
Church  and  made  to  share  in  its  saving  power ;  the  act  ex- 


200  A   THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

presses  the  consciousness  of  the  Church  that  the  child  Is 
a  child  of  God  and  has  a  right  to  claim  the  divine  pater- 
nity. These  are  much  more  Christian  ideas  than  those 
which  first  called  infant  baptism  into  existence. 

Scarcely  any  Christian  institution  has  experienced  such 
changes  and  deteriorations  as  baptism,  but  of  them  all 
the  loss  of  outlook  toward  the  Kingdom  of  God  was  one 
of  the  most  regrettable.  Could  the  social  gospel  —  at 
least  in  some  instances  —  fill  baptism  with  its  original 
meaning?  We  could  imagine  a  minister  and  a  group  of 
candidates  who  unite  in  feeling  the  evil  of  the  present 
world-order  and  the  promise  and  claims  of  the  impend- 
ing Christian  world-order,  together  using  baptism  to  ex- 
press their  solemn  dedication  to  the  tasks  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  and  accepting  their  rights  as  children  of  God 
within  that  Kingdom.  In  those  churches  in  which  bap- 
tism is  administered  in  infancy,  confirmation  would  of- 
fer the  next  best  opportunity  to  impress  and  express  such 
convictions.  In  the  catechumenate  the  ancient  Church 
put  the  candidate  through  long  processes  of  exorcization 
to  expel  the  demon  powers  which  had  infected  him  in  his 
pagan  life.  Those  churches  which  practise  confirmation 
have  shifted  the  instruction  of  the  catechumenate  to  pre- 
cede confirmation;  those  churches  which  practise  adult 
baptism  are  much  in  need  of  a  period  of  systematic 
instruction  before  baptism.  It  would  be  a  really  rational 
and  Christian  form  of  exorcization  to  break  the  infection 
of  the  sinful  and  illusive  world-order  and  to  explain  the 
nature  of  a  distinctively  Christian  order  of  life. 

Such  a  restoration  of  its  earliest  meaning  might  save 


BAPTISM    AND   THE   LORDS    SUPPER  201 

baptism  from  the  religious  and  theological  emptiness 
which  now  threatens  its  very  existence.  Its  older  doc- 
trinal meanings  have  leaked  away  or  evaporated.  In  the 
ancient  Church  it  was  closely  connected  with  the  prev- 
alent belief  in  demonism.  Patristic  and  scholastic 
theology  bound  it  up  with  original  sin.  But  we  do  not 
live  in  a  realizing  sense  of  demon  powers,  and  original 
sin  and  baptismal  regeneration  seem  to  be  marked  for 
extinction.  To  say  that  Christ  commanded  it  and  that 
we  must  obey  his  ordinance,  is  equivalent  to  confessing 
that  the  act  has  lost  its  enthusiasm  and  its  religious  con- 
viction. It  is  simply  an  order,  which  must  be  obeyed. 
Why  not  connect  baptism  with  the  Kingdom  of  God? 
It  has  always  been  an  exit  and  an  entrance ;  why  not  the 
exit  from  the  Kingdom  of  Evil  and  the  entrance  into  the 
Kingdom  of  God?  That  would,  under  right  teaching 
and  with  the  right  people,  give  it  solemn  impressiveness. 
It  would  make  it  a  truly  Christian  act.  Baptism  has  al- 
ways been  dogged  by  superstitions,  and  thrust  down  into 
paganism.  The  individualistic  interpretation  of  it  as  an 
escape  from  damnation  tainted  it  with  selfishness.  Con- 
tact with  the  Kingdom  of  God  would  restore  baptism 
to  its  original  ethical  and  spiritual  purity. 

The  Lord's  Supper,  like  Baptism,  has  had  a  tragic 
history. 

The  meal  in  the  upper  room  at  Jerusalem  was  the  last 
of  many  meals  in  which  Jesus  had  broken  the  bread 
with  his  friends  in  the  close  intimacy  of  their  wandering 
life.  The  spirit  of  all  the  previous  meals  was  in  this 
last  meal.     It  was  penaded  by  the  same  strong  and 


202  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

holy  feelings  of  friendship  which  make  the  disappoint- 
ment of  Jesus  in  the  garden  so  pathetic.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion whether  Jesus'  thought  ran  beyond  the  group  of  his 
friends  when  he  asked  for  a  repetition  of  the  meal;  it 
seems  at  least  very  unlikely  that  he  purposed  a  cult  act 
such  as  actually  developed.  His  purpose  was  to  create 
an  act  of  loyalty  which  would  serve  to  keep  memory  and 
fidelity  alive  until  he  should  return  and  eat  and  drink 
with  them  again  in  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Jesus  had 
created  a  wonderful  social  group.  He  wanted  it  to  hold 
together.  The  Lord's  Supper  came  into  existence 
through  strong  religious  and  social  feeling  and  its  pur- 
pose was  the  maintenance  of  the  highest  loyalty. 

In  the  primitive  Church  the  memorial  act  was  part  of 
a  fraternal  meal  in  which  the  Christian  group  met  in  re- 
ligious privacy  to  express  its  peculiar  unity  and  coher- 
ence. Such  communistic  meals,  to  which  every  member 
contributed  his  portion  of  food,  were  quite  common 
among  the  religious  and  fraternal  societies  of  the  time. 
Communistic  meals  produce  solidaristic  fdelings  even 
today.  Paul  was  not  a  marked  exponent  of  democratic 
emotions,  but  he  was  deeply  shocked  when  he  learned 
that  the  social  character  of  the  common  meal  at  Corinth 
had  been  debased  by  the  intrusion  of  the  class  divisions 
of  the  outside  world.  The  welltodo  gathered  in  cote- 
ries to  eat  their  plentiful  supplies,  while  the  poor  sat  neg- 
lected and  ashamed.  His  feeling  testifies  to  the  social 
beauty  and  power  which  the  Lord's  Supper  then  pos- 
sessed.    (I  Cor.  xi,  17-34.) 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Lord's  Supper  has 
always  had  a  powerful  influence  in  consolidating  the  fra- 


BAPTISM    AND    THE   LORDS    SUPPER  203 

ternal  organization  of  the  Church.  It  has  always  been 
an  inner  privilege,  for  which  preparation  had  to  be  made, 
and  from  which  a  man  might  be  excluded ;  consequently 
it  was  prized.  In  the  European  State  Churches,  people 
who  have  become  wholly  indifferent  to  church  life,  still 
attend  communion  once  a  year  and  would  regard  it  as 
a  loss  to  be  shut  out  from  it.  In  the  early  Church,  dis- 
cipline consisted  largely  in  barring  offenders  from  com- 
munion. The  humiliation  and  sacrifices  assumed  by 
penitents  in  order  to  get  back  into  the  full  solidarity  of 
the  Church  shows  that  strong  social  feelings  were  at 
work  here.  Reconciliation  among  the  members  pre- 
ceded communion.  None  could  share  in  the  Lord's 
Supper  who  were  in  a  state  of  enmity  with  other  Chris- 
tians. Thus  people  were  compelled  to  face  Christ's  law 
of  love  and  forgiveness,  and  pluck  the  bitter  root  of 
pride  and  ill-wdll  from  their  hearts.  This,  too,  was  a 
social  value  of  the  ceremony.  The  rubric  of  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer  still  empowers  the  minister  to  warn 
notorious  offenders  to  stay  away,  and  to  do  the  same 
"  with  those,  betwixt  whom  he  perceiveth  malice  and 
hatred  to  reign,  not  suffering  them  to  be  partakers  of  the 
Lord's  Table,  until  he  know^  them  to  be  reconciled." 
This  is  expressed  also  in  the  beautiful  invitation: 
-  "  Ye  who  do  truly  and  earnestly  repent  you  of  your 
sins,  and  are  in  love  and  charity  with  your  neighbours, 
and  intend  to  lead  a  new  life,  following  the  command- 
ments of  God,  and  walking  from  henceforth  in  his  holy 
ways :  Draw  near  with  faith,  and  take  this  holy  sacra- 
ment to  your  comfort,  and  make  your  humble  confession 
to  Almighty  God,  devoutly  kneeling." 


204  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

In  the  first  generation,  and  perhaps  later,  the  Lord's 
Supper  still  had  an  outlook  toward  the  coming  of  the 
Lord.  We  find  this  still  in  a  significant  phrase  in  Paul, 
who  otherwise  emphasized  other  lines  of  thought: 
"  For  as  often  as  ye  eat  this  bread  and  drink  this  cup,  ye 
proclaim  the  Lord's  death  till  he  come."  Now,  to  the 
larger  part  of  the  primitive  Church  the  coming  of  the 
Lord  signified  the  coming  of  the  millennial  reign  of 
peace  and  righteousness  on  earth.  The  Lord's  Supper 
was,  therefore,  connected  with  the  realization  of  the 
social  ideals  and  hopes  of  the  Church.  The  prevalence 
of  prophecy  in  the  charismatic  life  of  primitive  Chris- 
tianity points  in  the  same  direction.  It  acted  as  an  in- 
terpretation of  the  Lord's  Supper. 

The  outlook  toward  the  coming  of  the  Lord  became 
dim  as  time  went  on.  The  eucharistic  act  was  cut  loose 
from  the  fraternal  meal,  and  that  was  a  great  lessening 
of  its  social  value.  The  meal  was  still  held  occasionally 
in  the  evening,  but  turned  into  a  charitable  performance 
where  the  rich  fed  the  poor,  and  it  finally  ceased.  The 
eucharistic  act  was  connected  with  the  church  worship 
on  Sunday  morning.  It  developed  sacramental  quali- 
ties in  two  directions;  it  was  mystic  food,  in  which  the 
Lord  was  present  and  through  which  his  grace  and 
power  and  immortalTife  nourished  the  soul;  and  it  was 
a  sacrifice  offered  to  God.  The  fact  that  it  was  the 
central  mystery  of  the  esoteric  ritual  of  the  church  made 
it  very  important  as  a  bond  of  unity,  but  the  fraternal 
feeling  of  the  early  days  was  lessened.  It  intensified 
the  consciousness  of  God  rather  than  the  consciousness 
of  man.     The  fraternal  meal  of  Jesus  became  a  chief 


BAPTISM    AND    THE   LORD'S    SUPPER  2O5 

means  of  creating  the  priesthood  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
and  the  main  door  through  which  superstitious  behefs 
came  in.  In  time  it  became  the  mass,  in  which  the 
priest  partook  of  the  bread  and  wine  while  the  people 
watched  him  doing  it.  He  might  even  go  through  the 
whole  performance  alone,  for  the  benefit  of  a  deceased 
person,  according  to  the  terms  of  an  endowment.  Thus 
the  Lord's  Supper  lost  its  meaning  because  it  was  in  the 
hands  of  a  body  which  had  neither  social  outlook  nor 
democratic  emotions. 

The  Protestant  Reformation  concentrated  on  the  re- 
form of  the  Lord's  Supper.  The  laity  shared  more 
fully  in  it.  The  private  mass  was  abolished.  Some  of 
the  social  feeling  was  restored.  But  not  the  social  out- 
look. The  act  turned  backward  and  not  forward.  It 
is  an  act  of  remembrance;  in  it  we  appropriate  the  aton- 
ing death  of  our  Saviour.  Where  it  is  experienced  most 
deeply,  it  is  a  mystic  act  of  fellowship  between  the  un- 
seen Lord  and  the  silent  soul  of  the  worshipper. 

For  a  time  the  great  act  of  fraternal  love  became  the 
object  of  bitter  controversial  feelings  between  Catholic 
and  Protestant,  and  between  Lutheran  and  Calvinist,  and 
exercised  a  very  unsocial  and  divisive  influence. 

While  the  great  churches  were  bitterly  contending 
over  the  question  whether  their  Lord  was  physically  or 
spiritually  present,  and  if  physically,  whether  by  tran- 
substantiation  or  consubstantiation,  the  persecuted  Ana- 
baptists, who  had  neither  the  right  to  meet  nor  to  exist, 
had  the  spirit  of  the  original  institution  among  them. 
As  in  the  primitive  Church,  their  service  was  preceded  by 


206  A   THEOLOGY   FOR    THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

searching  of  heart  and  reconciHation,  so  that  all  might 
be  one  in  Christ.  As  in  the  upper  room  at  Jerusalem, 
they  acted  in  full  view  of  death,  and  their  main  thought 
was  to  gain  strength  for  imprisonment  and  torture  by 
once  more  touching  the  garment-hem  of  their  Lord. 
They  often  dwelt  on  the  fact  that  many  grains  of  wheat 
had  been  crushed  and  had  felt  the  heat  of  the  oven  to 
make  this  bread,  and  many  berries  of  the  vine  had  been 
pressed  in  the  wine-press  to  make  this  wine ;  in  the  same 
way  the  followers  of  Jesus  must  pass  through  affliction 
and  persecution  in  order  to  form  the  body  of  the  Lord. 
Thus  these  poor  proletarians,  hunted  by  the  tyrannical 
combinations  of  Church  and  State,  Catholic  and  Prot- 
estant alike,  returned  to  the  original  spirit  of  the  Lord's 
Meal  and  realized  that  Real  Presence  about  which  others 
wrangled. 

Can  the  social  gospel  contribute  to  make  the  Lord's 
Supper  more  fully  an  act  of  fraternity  and  to  connect 
itagain  with  the  social  hope  of  the  Kingdom  of  God? 

In  the  Lord's  Supper  we  re-affirm  our  supreme  alle- 
giance to  our  Lord  who  taught  us  to  know  God  as  our 
common  father  and  to  realize  that  all  men  are  our 
brethren.  In  the  midst  of  a  world  full  of  divisive  sel- 
fishness we  thereby  accept  brotherhood  as  the  ruling 
principle  of  our  life  and  undertake  to  put  it  into  practice 
in  our  private  and  public  activities.  We  abjure  the 
selfish  use  of  power  and  wealth  for  the  exploitation  of 
our  fellows.  We  dedicate  our  lives  to  establishing  the 
Kingdom  of  God  and  to  winning  mankind  to  its  laws. 
In  contemplation  of  the  death  of  our  Lord  we  accept 


BAPTISM    AND    THE    LORD'S    SUPPER  207 

the  possibility  of  risk  and  loss  as  our  share  of  service. 
We  link  ourselves  to  his  death  and  accept  the  obliga- 
tion of  the  cross. 

It  is  open  to  any  minister  to  emphasize  thoughts  such 
as  these,  connecting  the  Lord's  Supper  with  the  King- 
dom of  God.  All  who  have  the  new  social  conscious- 
ness would  feel  their  appeal.  Any  person  encountering 
antagonism  or  loss  for  the  sake  of  the  Kingdom  would 
find  comfort  and  strength  in  connecting  his  troubles  with 
the  cross  of  Christ.  The  Lord's  Supper  was  instituted 
by  Jesus  in  full  view  of  his  death.  We  can  fully  share 
his  spirit  only  when  we  too  confront  the  possibility  of 
suffering  in  the  same  cause. 

The  emphasis  on  such  thoughts  would  be  the  reaction 
of  the  social  gospel  on  the  religious  and  theological  con- 
tent of  the  Lord's  Supper.  They  would  be  a  challenge 
to  the  Church  to  realize  its  mission  as  the  social  embodi- 
ment of  the  Christ-spirit  in  humanity.  They  would 
constitute  a  spiritual  preparation  for  the  actual  experi- 
ence of  the  Real  Presence  —  that  Presence  which  re- 
quires a  social  group  of  two  or  three  because  love  and 
the  sense  of  solidarity  are  necessary  to  enable  him  to  be 
in  the  midst  of  us. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

ESCHATOLOGY 

EscHATOLOGY  raises  two  questions  of  profound  in- 
terest to  the  human  mind.  First,_What_is  the  future  of 
the  individual  after  his  brief  span  of  ^.e^irs  on  earth  is 
over?  Second,  Whatjs  to  be_the  ultimate  destiny  of  the 
human  race? 

These  questions  are  important  to  every  thoughtful 
mind,  and  they  are  inseparable  from  religion.  Religion 
is  always  eschatological.  Its  characteristic  is  faith.  It 
lives  in  and  for  the  future.  In  all  other  parts  of  our 
life  we  deal  with  imperfect  things,  fluctuating,  condi- 
tioned, relative,  and  never  complete.  In  religion  we 
seek  for  the  final  realities,  the  absolute  values,  the  things 
as  God  sees  them,  complete,  in  organic  union. 
,  All  religions  of  higher  development  have  some 
mythology  about  the  future.  The  Christian  religion 
needs  a  Christian  eschatology.  To  be  satisfying  to  the 
Christian  consciousness  any  teaching  concerning  the 
future  life  of  the  individual  must  express  that  high  valu- 
ation of  the  eternal  worth  of  the  soul  which  we  have 
learned  from  Christ,  and  must  not  contradict  or  sully 
the  revelation  of  the  justice,  love,  and  forgiving  mercy 
of  our  heavenly  Father  contained  in  his  words,  his  life, 
and  his  personality.  Any  doctrine  about  the  future  of 
the  race  which  is  to  guide  our  thought  and  action,  must 
208 


ESCHATOLOGY  209 

view  it  from  distinctively  Christian,  ethical  points  of 
view,  and  must  not  contradict  what  is  historically  and 
scientifically  certain. 

In  fact,  however,  our  traditional  eschatology  never 
was  a_  purely.  Christian  product,  growing  organically 
from  Christian  soil  and  expressing  distinctively  Chris- 
tian convictions.  It  is  more  in  the  nature  of  an  histor- 
ical mosaic  combining  fragments  of  non-christian  and 
pre-christian  systems  with  genuine  Christian  ideas.  It 
took  shape  under  special  historical  conditions,  and  was 
broken  up  and  shaped  afresh  to  express  other  conditions, 
but  in  no  case  was  it  shaped  to  suit  our  modern  needs. 
Like  all  eschatologies  it  expresses  ideas  about  the  uni- 
verse, but  these  cosmic  conceptions  are  pre-scientific. 
The  world  protrayed  In  them  is  the  world  of  the  Ptole- 
maic system,  a  world  three  stories  high,  with  heaven 
above  and  hell  beneath.  During  the  formative  cen- 
turies the  Oriental  and  Greek  religious  life,  which  deeply 
influenced  Christianity,  was  dualistic,  and  whatever  In- 
fluences have  come  from  that  source  are  not  only  his- 
torically but  essentially  unchristian.  A  Christian  mind 
can  get  most  satisfaction  by  contemplating  how  the 
genius  of  the  Christian  religion  took  this  heterogeneous 
and  often  alien  material  and  made  something  approxi- 
mately Christian  of  it  after  all. 

As  a  consequence  eschatology  is jJSualIy:..loved_Jn  in-| 
ver^  prop_grtio_n_t_oJhe^ s^uar^  ^ll^JH^t^I  diameter  of  i 
those, ^whq  do  the  loving.  Calvin  was  the  greatest^ 
exegete  of  his  day  and  he  wrote  commentaries  on  nearly 
all  the  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  but  he 
gave  the  Apocalypse  a  wide  berth.     No  Interpretation 


210  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

of  this  main  biblical  source  ever  won  general  consent  as 
long  as  it  was  interpreted  doctrinally.  The  wise  threw 
up  their  hands;  those  who  devoted  their  minds  to  it, 
often  suffered  from  mild  obsession.  Our  generation  is 
the  first  in  eighteen  hundred  years  to  understand  this 
book  as  its  author,  or  authors,  meant  it  to  be  understood, 
and  now  it  is  one  of  the  most  enlightening  and  interest- 
ing books  of  them  all.  In  primitive  Christianity  es- 
chatology  was  in  the  centre  of  religious  interest  and 
thought.  Today  it  is  on  the  circumference,  and  with 
some  Christians  it  lies  outside  the  circumference.  Theo- 
logians of  liberal  views  are  brief  or  apologetic  when 
they  reach  eschatology.  This  situation  is  deeply  regret- 
table. Perhaps  no  other  section  of  theology  is  so  much 
■;  in  need  of  a  thorough  rejuvenation. 

Those  who  believe  in  the  social  gospel  are  especially 
..concerned  in  this  element  of  weakness  in  theology.  The 
Asocial  gospel  seeks  to  develop  the  vision  of  the  Church 
•itoward  the  future  and  to  co-operate  with  the  will  of 
God  which  is  shaping  the  destinies  of  humanity.  It 
would  be  aided  and  reinforced  by  a  modern  and  truly 
Christian  conception  about  the  future  of  mankind.  At 
present  no  other  theological  influence  so  hampers  and 
obstructs  the  social  gospel  as  that  of  eschatology.  _A11 
considerations  taken_from  the^Hfe  of  the,jtwentieth  cen- 
tury cry  out  for  something  like  the  social  gospel ;  but  the 
id.eas  of  the  jEirst  century  contained  in  eschatology  are 
used  to  veto  it.  Those  who  have  trained  their  religious 
thinking  on  the  Hebrew  prophets  and  the  genuine  teach- 
ings of  Jesus  are  for  the  social  gospel;  those  who  have 
trained  it  on  apocalyptic  ideas  are  against  it.     This  is 


ESCHATOLOGY  211 

all  the  more  pathetic  because  the  ^re-millennial  scheme  / 
is  really  an  outline  of  the  social  salvation  of  the  race. 
Those  who  hold  it  exhibit  real  interest  in  social  and  po-\ 
litical  events.     But  they  are  best  pleased  when  they  see  | 
humanity  defeated  and  collapsing,  for  then  salvation  is 
nigh.     Active  work  for  the  salvation  of  the  social  order 
before  the  coming  of  Christ  is  not  only  vain  but  against 
the  will  of  God.     Thus  eschatology  defeats  the  Chris- 
tian imperative  of  righteousness  and  salvation. 

Historical  science  and  the  social  gospel  together  may 
be  able  to  affect  eschatology  for  good.  Historical  ■ 
criticism  by  itself  makes  it  look  imbecile  and  has  no 
creative  power.  The  social  gospel  has  that  moral 
earnestness  and  religious  faith  which  exerts  construc- 
tive influence  on  doctrine. 

In  the  first  place,  the  social  gospel  can  at  least  give  us 
a  sympathetic  understanding  and  right  valuation  of  some 
of  the  elements  contained  in  the  inherited  body  of  ideas. 
A  merely  theological  comprehension  of  it  is  a  false  un- 
derstanding. It  must  be  understood  historically  in  con- 
nection with  the  social  situations  which  created  its  parts, 
like  the  buildings  on  an  old  college  campus,  or  like  the 
Constitution  and  its  amendments. 

Those  parts  of  Christian  eschatology  which  deal  with 
the  future  of  the  race  are  on  the  whole  derived  from 
ludaism,  and  we  owe  their  ethical  qualities  to  the  valiant 
democratic    spirit    of    the    prophets.     Their    "  Day    of  . 
Yahveh  "  became  our  "Great  Judgment";  the  time  of  , 
peace  and  righteousness  which  was  to  follow  it  became  j 
the   Christian   millennium.     The   whole   was   originally 


212  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

the  religious  equivalent  of  a  wholesome  revolution  in 
iwhich  the  oppressing  class  is  eliminated  and  the  right- 
!eous  poor  get  relief.  This  central  section  of  Christian 
eschatology  was  the  product  of  the  brave  fight  which 
Jehovah  and  his  people  made  together  for  the  ancestral 
freedom  of  the  common  people.  The  idea  of  a  resur- 
rection of  the  dead  did  not  come  into  eschatology  through 
growing  individualism,  but  out  of  the  feeling  that  the 
righteous  who  had  died  before  the  inauguration  of  the 
new  order  were  entitled  to  a  share  in  the  common  hap- 
piness. Demonology  and  satanology,  which  pervaded 
Jewish  eschatology  after  the  exile,  were,  as  we  have 
pointed  out,  in  part  a  religious  expression  of  social  and 
political  hatred  and  despair. 

Those  parts  of  eschatology  which  deal  with  the  future 
of  the  individual  were  in  the  main  derived  from  contem- 
porary Greek  life.  Greek  religion  was  characterized  by 
a  profound  desire  for  immortality  and  an  equally  deep 
sense  of  the  sin  and  sadness  of  this  earthly  life.  The 
"  mysteries  "  ministered  to  this  desire ;  Christianity  did 
it  more  effectively.  In  turn  these  religious  desires 
brought  out  and  strengthened  those  eschatological  facts 
and  ideas  in  Christianity  which  could  serve  them.  Here 
we  have  one  chief  cause  for  the  increasing  other-world- 
liness  of  Christianity.  Now,  this  attitude  of  weariness 
and^resjgnation,  which  led  to  the  immense  popularity  of 
ascetic  ideals  of  life,  was  in  part  a  product  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  It  had  clamped  down  its  bureaucracy  and  its 
tax-gathering  apparatus  on  all  Mediterranean  civiliza- 
tion ;  the  method  was  political  subjugation ;  the  aim  was 
economic    exploitation.     The    self-government    of    the 


ESCHATOLOGY  213 

Greek  states  by  which  the  citizens  might  have  been  pro- 
tected, had  been  put  under  safe  control.  Revolt  was 
useless.  If  we  imagine  a  single  empire  today  perma- 
nently holding  the  seas  and  continents  in  its  grip,  and 
enriching  its  aristocracy  from  the  industry  of  others, 
with  every  w-ay  of  escape  barred,  we  shall  understand 
the  apathy  of  men  under  the  Roman  Empire.  The 
escape  into  immortality  was  the  only  way  to  freedom 
left  to  all.  This  social  condition  left  deep  traces  in 
Christian  eschatology. 

Thus  social  causes  contributed  to  the  origin  of  escha- 
tological  ideas.  Other  social  causes  led  to  their  disap-  ] 
pearance.  Amid  the  doctrinal  changes  of  the  Protestant  ' 
Reformation  eschatology  remained  unchanged  except 
that  purgatory  was  cut  out.  It  had  no  support  in  the 
canonical  Scriptures.  That  was  one  motive.  But,  also, 
the  belief  in  purgatory  had  become  a  prolific  source  of 
income  for  the  Church.  Hell  was  unalterable;  no  gifts 
or  indulgences  could  unlock  its  gates.  The  penalties  to 
be  absolved  in  purgatory  could  be  lightened  by  in- 
dulgence, and  shortened  by  the  prayers  and  pious  works 
of  friends.  The  indulgence  system  was  built  on  this,.- 
belief,  and  innumerable  endowments  were  provided  for 
masses  to  be  read  for  the  repose  of  the  souls  in  purga- 
tory. Now,  the  income  bearing  property  of  the  Church 
and  the  clergy  living  on  it  constituted  the  greatest  social 
and  economic  problem  of  the  age  before  the  Reforma- 
tion. Wherever  the  Reformation  received  the  support 
of  government,  church  property  was  "  secularized  "  or 
confiscated.     When     Protestant     theology     denied     the 


214  A    THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

existence  of  purgatory,  it  denied  that  the  Church  could 
render  any  quid  pro  quo  for  its  vested  incomes,  and  this 
weakened  the  legal  and  moral  hold  of  the  Church  on  its 
endowments,  and  cut  under  some  of  the  most  offensive 
practices  of  the  Church.  Unless  these  practical  consid- 
erations had  made  purgatory  a  social  issue,  it  may  be 
questioned  whether  the  lack  of  biblical  support  for  the 
doctrine  would  have  sufficed  to  suppress  it.  The  result- 
ing contest  of  Protestant  theology  against  the  doctrine 
of  purgatory  induced  it,  by  its  necessary  reactions,  to 
assert  that  the  fate  of  the  soul  is  fixed  at  death  and  the 
saved  enter  into  glory. 

Perhaps  the  modern  hesitancy  about  the  doctrine  of 
hell  also  has  social  causes.  Despotic  governments  for- 
merly accustomed  men  to  frequent,  public,  and  very  hor- 
rible executions,  and  to  long  and  hopeless  imprisonments. 
Since  the  spread  of  democracy  has  somewhat  weakened 
the  cruel  grip  of  the  governing  classes,  the  criminal  law 
has  become  more  humane.  Capital  punishments  have 
become  less  frequent,  less  public,  and  less  cruel.  The 
outfit  of  prisons  has  improved.  There  is  an  increasing 
feeling  that  punishment  should  not  be  merely  vindictive 
and  terrifying,  but  remedial  and  disciplinary,  aiming  at 
the  salvation  and  social  restoration  of  the  offender. 
Our  prisons  are  our  human  hells,  where  men  are  cut  off 
from  all  that  exercises  a  saving  influence  on  our  lives  — 
the  love  of  wife  and  child  and  home,  work  and  play, 
contact  with  nature,  hope,  ambition, —  only  fear  and  co- 
ercion are  in  full  force.  If  democracy  should  further 
weaken  the  hold  of  the  governing  classes  on  the  penal 
system  of  the  country;  and  if  Christianity  should  im- 


ESCHATOLOGY  21$ 

press  us  with  the  divine  worth  of  "  the  least  of  these  " 
in  prison  and  our  obhgation  to  offer  them  salvation ;  and 
if  the  prison  system  becomes  redemptive;  can  theology 
then  continue  to  get  the  moral  approval  of  mankind  for  a 
divine  prison  which  is  not  educational  and  redemptive, 
but  wholly  without  change  or  end? 

Thus  eschatology  has  all  along  been  influenced  by  social 
causes,  while  keeping  on  its  own  conservative  path  of 
tradition.  The  Jewish  people  under  social  and  political  ^ 
oppression,  and  the_pTimitiv^  Church  under  persecution 
wept  and  prayed  our  eschatology  into~^xistehcer  Our 
Apocalyps'e"i's  wet  \vith' hijirnan  tears  ancl~musTbe  read 
that  way.  Ever  since,  some  sections  of  eschatology 
have  been  vivified,  others  modified,  and  some  consigned 
to  oblivion  through  the  pressure  of  social  causes.  Has 
not  the  social  consciousness  of  our  age,  speaking  through!- 
the  social  gospel,  also  a  right  to  be  heard  in  the  shaping 
of  eschatology? 

Any  reformatory  force  taking  hold  of  eschatology  can 
not  expect  a  fresh  start,  but  must  reckon  with  its  tra- 
ditional contents  and  its  biblical  and  theological  sources. 
It  may  clear  our  path  to  lay  down  several  propositions 
about  this  material  coming  from  the  past. 

I.  In  everything  contributed  by  the  Old  Testament  we 
should  seek  to  distinguish  what  is  due  to  the  divine  in-  ■■ 
spiration  of  the  prophets.  We  are  under  no  obligation 
to  accept  the  mythical  ideas  and  cosmic  speculations  of 
the  Hebrew  people,  their  limited  geography,  their  primi- 
tive astronomy,  the  historical  outlook  of  the  book  of 
Daniel,    or    the    Babylonian    and    Persian    ideas    which 


2l6  A    THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

flowed  into  their  religious  thought.  What  has  authority 
for  us  is  the  ethical  and  religious  light  of  men  who  had 
an  immediate  consciousness  of  the  living  God,  and  saw 
him  now  and  hereafter  acting  for  righteousness,  for  the 
vindication  of  the  oppressed  classes,  and  for  the  purg- 
ing of  the  social  life  of  the  nation.  These  elements  of 
the  Old  Testament  carry  authority  because  they  are  in 
spiritual  consensus  with  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ. 

2.  We  should  learn  to  distinguish  clearly  between 
prophecy  and__apocalypjtIcism.  There  is  as  much  dif- 
ference between  them  as  between  Paul  and  Pope  Gregory 
I.  From  apocalypticism  we  get  the  little  diagrams  which 
map  out  the  history  of  the  human  race  on  deterministic 
methods,  as  if  God  consulted  the  clock.  From  the  same 
source  the  active  belief  in  demonology,  the  reliance  on 
miraculous  catastrophes,  and  the  blue  light  of  unreality 
have  always  come  into  eschatology.  Those  who  fill 
their  minds  with  it,  thereby  tie  themselves  to  all  back- 
ward things.  Apocalyptic  believers  necessarily  insist  on 
the  verbal  inerrancy  of  Scripture  and  oppose  historical 
methods,  for  their  work  consists  in  piecing  mosaics  of 
texts.  Historically  we  can  appreciate  the  religious 
value  of  apocalypticism  in  later  Judaism,  just  as  we  can 
appreciate  the  religious  value  of  the  belief  in  transub- 
stantiation  or  of  scholastic  theology.  But  as  a  present- 
day  influence  in  religion  it  is  dangerous.  It  has  prob- 
ably done  more  to  discredit  eschatology  than  any  other 
single  influence. 

3.  In  the  New  Testament  it  is  our  business  to  sift  out 
what  is  distinctively  Christian  in  origin  and  spirit.  It 
stands  to  reason  that  the  leaven  of  the  Christian  spirit 


ESCHATOLOGY  217 

was  not  able  at  once  to  transform  the  inherited  ideas  of 
Jews  and  Gentiles  of  the  first  generation.  For  instance, 
Christianity  had  to  struggle  hard  with  the  stubborn  na- 
tionalistic pride  of  Judaism  which  claimed  either  a 
monopoly  of  messianic  salvation  or  at  least  special  priv- 
ileges within  it.  Even  Paul,  the  chief  exponent  of  in- 
ternational religion,  could  not  get  away  from  his  pro- 
Jewish  feelings,  and  thought  God  was  saving  the 
Gentiles  in  order  to  stir  up  the  Jews  and  get  them  saved. 
Jesus  did  not  make  the  judgment  depend  on  nationality 
but  on  the  sense  of  human  solidarity,  and  repeatedly 
foreshadowed  that  the  Jews  would  be  supplanted.  In 
the  Apocalypse  we  are  carried  back  into  Jewish-feeling 
and  points  of  view.  The  mind  of  Jesus  Christ  is  our 
criterion  for  an  ethical  scrutiny  of  these  ingredients. 

4.  The  effort  to  systematize  the  eschatological  state- 
ments of  biblical  writers  has  always  been  muddled  by  the 
supposition  that  they  all  -thought  alike.  There  was,  as 
yet,  no  orthodoxy.  All  were  deeply  interested  in  these 
questions,  and  men  of  strong  conviction  made  their  own 
formulations.  The  Apocalypse,  Paul,  and  the  fourth 
gospel  are  strikingly  unlike. 

The  Apocalypse  expounds  the  old  social  hope  of 
Israel.  The  great  woes  and  the  overthrow  of  the  mystic 
Babylon  have  political  significance.  There  are  a  thou- 
sand years  of  messianic  peace  on  this  earth.  Even  after 
the  last  eruption  of  Satan  and  the  great  judgment  the 
new  earth  is  still  on  the  old  earth;  the  new  Jerusalem 
comes  down  here,  and  there  are  trees,  and  a  river,  and 
happy  people. 


2l8  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE    SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

Paul,  on  the  other  hand,  has  no  room  for  a  millennium 
of  flesh  and  blood  men  on  a  material  earth.  The  coming 
of  Christ  would  usher  in  a  cosmic  change;  the  material 
world  would  end  and  the  groaning  of  dying  creation 
would  cease ;  the  living  and  the  dead  would  receive  spir- 
itual bodies;  therewith  the  last  enemy,  Death,  would  be 
overcome,  and  God  would  be  all  in  all.  In  Paul  the 
Jewish  and  the  Greek  streams  of  thought  join.  Prob- 
ably in  this,  as  in  other  things,  Paul  stood  for  a  new 
theology ;  the  Apocalypse  comes  nearer  to  being  the  prev- 
alent view  of  the  first  generation. 

In  the  fourth  gospel  and  the  epistles  of  John  we  see 
the  futu.r^e_y:ansla^d_jmo^^  The  chief 

points  of  primitive  eschatology,  the  antichrist,  the 
parousia,  the  judgment,  the  resurrection,  are  still  ac- 
knowleged ;  but  there  are  many  antichrists  now  present ; 
the  coming  _of  the  Comforter  takes  the  place  of  the 
parousia ;  the  judgment_takes^pkce_^ when  men  accept 
or  reject  the  light;  the  spiritual  transformation  into 
eternal  life  takes  place  now.  Eschatology  is  dissolved 
into  Christology;  the  Kingdom  of  God  gives  way  to  the 
Church.  It  is  far  more  instructive  spiritually  to  see 
these  different  views  side  by  side  than  to  see  them 
mangled  and  forced  into  conformity. 

i  5.  The  mosOroij^lesome_problem  at  present  is  to 
determine  what  Jesus Jiimself„thought  about  the  future. 
^  S^P.y.P._5i_  able  scholars  has  put  such  emphasis  on  the 
eschatological  sayings  of  Jesus  that  he  himself  has  been 
turned  into  an  apocalyptic  enthusiast  and  the  authority 
of  his  ethical  teaching  has  been  impaired  by  being  yoked 


ESCHATOLOGY  2I9 

with  apocalyptic  expectations.  This  school  of  tliought 
has  done  valuable  work,  but  the  future  will  probably 
show  that  it  has  overworked  its  working  hypothesis. 

Ordinary  critical  analysis  eliminates  a  good  deal  of 
eschatological  material  as  later  accretions.  The  earliest 
of  the  documentary  sources  of  the  gospels,  "  Q,"  contains 
least.  ^ 

All  human  analogies  make  it  certain  that  his  followers 
coloured  his  ideas  with  their  own  previous  conceptions. 
They  could  not  help  it.  Language  is  rich  on  the  lower, 
and  thin  on  the  higher,  spiritual  levels.  Men  of  high 
religious  power  have  often  become  poetical  makers  of 
language  because  they  had  to  wrestle  with  their  medium 
of  expression  and  coin  new  figures  and  terms.  They 
must  use  the  lower  terminology  to  express  the  inexpressi- 
ble. Their  followers,  the  loyal  lower  souls,  invariably 
coarsen  and  materialize  their  teachings,  taking  the 
figures  for  realities  and  the  accidental  for  the  substance. 
The  more  original  and  spiritual  a  teacher  is,  the  larger 
will  be  the  inevitable  ratio  of  misunderstanding.  We 
must  remember  that  the  sayings  of  Jesus  were  repeated 
and  transmitted  orally  for  years  before  our  earliest  docu- 
ments were  written. 

We  see  the  whole  situation  Incorrectly  when  we  tacitly 
assume  that  the  ideas  of  Jesus  were  uniform  through- 
out his  teaching  ministry.  If  we  take  the  doctrine  of 
his  real  humanity  seriously,  he  was  a  growing  person- 
ality, and  his  ideas  were  in  the  making.     A  man's  ideas 

1  Harnack,  "Sayings  of  Jesus,"  p.  250.  "The  tendency  to  exag- 
gerate the  apocalyptic  and  eschatological  elements  in  our  Lord's 
message  and  to  subordinate  to  this  the  merely  religious  and  ethical 
elements,  will  ever  find  its  refutation  in  Q." 


220  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

are  developed  by  reacting  on  the  ideas  of  his  fellow  men 
by  assent  or  dissent.  It  is  vital  to  this  problem  to  know 
in  what  direction  Jesus  was  working,  into  apocalypticism 
or  out  of  it.  We  can  see  that  he  began  with  a  Jewish 
horizon  and  broke  his  way  into  a  world-wide  and  human 
world.  How  about  his  eschatology  ?  His  earliest  para- 
bles are  a  decisive  answer.  He  chose  that  form  of 
teaching  because  he  wanted  to  veil  and  yet  reveal  his 
polemical  departure  from  current  messianic  ideas.  He 
took  his  illustrations  from  organic  life  to  express  the  idea 
of  the  gradual  growth  of  the  Kingdom.  He  was  shak- 
ing off  catastrophic  ideas  and  substituting  developmental 
ideas.  John  had  put  the  judgment  at  the  beginning  of 
the  Messiah's  work;  Jesus  pushed  it  over  to  the  end. 
He  had  no  taste  for  that  part  of  the  Messianic  program. 
In  short,  apocalypticism  was  part  of  the  environment  in 
which  he  began  his  thinking;  it  was  not  his  personal 
product;  he  was  emancipating  himself  from  it.  This  is 
essential. 

The  intellect  of  Jesus  was  religious  and  prophetic; 
it  was  not  constructed  for  apocalypticism.  It  had  too 
many  windows.  Paul's  ethical  teaching  got  its  orienta- 
tion from  his  eschatology.  The  ethics  of  Jesus  would 
have  remained  the  same  if  the  range  of  time  had 
lengthened  before  him.  His  mind  did  push  impetuously 
forward,  but  not  toward  a  scheme  of  distant  events,  but 
toward  the  immediate  saving  acts  of  God.  To  him  the 
Kingdom  of  God  was  both  future  and  present.  Who- 
ever can  harbour  that  antimony  has  risen  above  apocalyp- 
ticism. 


ESCHATOLOGY 


6.  The  eschatological  schemes  of  primitive  Christianity|   ~ 
were  all  based  on  the  supposition  that  the  end  would    ,_ 
come  soon.     If  Paul  expected  a  longer  interval  in  his 
later  life,  it  was  a  matter  of  years,  not  of  centuries.    / 
The  actual  duration  of  the  present  world  for  nineteen 
hundred   years  has   disrupted   the  whole   outline.     The 
judgment  and  the  general  resurrection  of  the  dead  were 
necessary  parts  of  the  Jewish  eschatology  because  the 
judgment  was  needed  to  decide  who  was  to  share  in  the 
Messianic  happiness,   and  the   resurrection  enabled  the^ 
dead  to  have  their  part  in  it.     But  what  is  the  use  of- 
the  judgment  if  the  fate  of  every  man  is  decided  at  his| 
death  and  he  goes  directly  to  heaven  or  hell  ?     And  why  1 
should  a  Christian  of  the  first  century  receive  his  body 
again  at  the  general  resurrection  when  he  has  lived  in  ; 
heaven  without  it  for  eighteen  hundred  years? 

History  is  a  revelation  of  God's  will.     God  thinks  in  | 
action,  and  speaks  in  events.     His  historical  realities  are  f 
a~surer~word  of  God  than  any  prophecy.     The  least  of  ^ 
us  today  knows  things  which  would  have  revolutionized 
the  eschatology  of  the  apostles.     Are  we  obedient  to  the 
revelation  of  God  if  we  think  more  of  the  sprouting 
grain  than  of  the  full  ear,  and  artificially  put  ourselves 
back  where  we  do  not  belong? 

7.  The  early  Catholic  Church  dealt  reverently  with  , 
the  primitive  eschatology,  and  yet  changed  it  profoundly.   ' 
The  earthly  millennium  was  very  dear  to  the  common 
people,  but  the  intellectuals  and  college  graduates  who 
had  studied  Greek  philosophy,  had  no  use  for  it.     The 
Gnostics   hated    it,    and   the    semi-Gnostic    Alexandrian 


222  A   THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

theology  undermined  it.  What  sort  of  religious  ideal 
was  this  which  pictured  fertile  fields  and  vineyards,  lots 
of  babies  romping,  and  old  men  holding  on  to  life  for 
a  hundred  years?  How  did  that  chime  with  a  holy  de- 
sire for  heaven  and  the  "angelic  hfe  "  of  asceticism? 
Moreover  how  did  the  theocratic  and  fraternal  social 
order  pictured  in  the  millennial  ideal  square  with  the 
Roman  Empire,  the  present  distribution  of  property,  the 
eminence  of  the  upper  classes,  the  permanence  of  church 
institutions,  and  the  power  of  the  bishops?  (Church 
historians  usually  dwell  on  the  theological  objections  to 
the  "  carnal  "  millennial  ideas,  but  fail  to  see  how  dis- 
tasteful the  social  elements  of  the  millennial  ideal  must 
have  been  to  those  who  controlled  the  teaching  of  the 
Church.)  So  the  millennium  was  dropped  out,  while 
the  safer  and  more  distant  parts  of  the  Jewish  escha- 
tology  were  retained.  Personal  immortality,  of  course, 
had  long  ago  crowded  the  racial  eschatology  aside  in 
point  of  real  interest. 

But  the  most  decisive  fact  in  transforming  the  sub- 
stance of  primitive  eschatology  was  the  Church  itself. 
Its  future  was  now  the  future  of  Christianity.  In  Jew- 
ish eschatology  there  was  no  Church  in  the  picture ;  only 
the  people.  In  primitive  Christian  thought  the  Church 
was  real,  but  it  was  like  a  temporary  house  put  up  to 
shelter  the  believers  till  the  Lord  came  and  the  real  sal- 
vation began.  But  the  Parousia  did  not  come,  and  the 
temporary  shelter  grew  and  grew,  and  became  the  main 
thing.  Even  if  the  doctrines  of  eschatology  had  been 
kept  unchanged,  they  would  no  longer  have  been  the  same 
after  the  Catholic  Church  had  come  on  the  scene. 


ESCHATOLOGY 


223 


The  considerations  discussed  above  are  necessary,  it 
seems  to  me,  for  a  proper  understanding  and  valuation 
of  the  biblical  material  in  traditional  eschatology.  A 
few  constructive  propositions  can  now  be  made  about  the 
future  of  Jhe_race. 

I.  The  future  development  of  the  race  should  have  a 
larger  place  in  practical  Christian  teaching.  The  great 
ethical  issues  of  the  future  lie  in  this  field,  and  the 
mind  of  Christian  men  and  women  should  be  active 
there.  If  we  can  not  be  guided  by  moral  and  spiritual 
thought,  we  shall  be  guided  by  bitter  experience.  The 
Great  War  is  in  truth  a  grim  discussion  of  the  future 
of  the  race  on  this  planet,  but  a  discussion  with  both 
reason  and  religion  left  out.  We  have  the  amplest  war- 
rant for  directing  the  prophetic  thought  of  religious  men 
toward  the  social  and  political  future  of  humanity,  for 
all  eschatology  derived  from  Hebrew  sources  dealt  with 
these  interests.  A  stronger  emphasis  on  the  future  of 
the  race  will  simply  restore  the  genuinely  Christian  em- 
phasis. But  if  Christian  teachers  are  to  teach  truth 
about  history,  they  must  have  truth  to  teach.  If  all 
ministers  and  Bible  School  teachers  should  now  sud- 
denly begin  to  talk  on  these  subjects,  the  angels  above 
would  probably  be  astonished  to  see  a  still  thicker  vapour 
of  partisan  fury  and  nationalistic  egotism  rising  from 
all  countries. 

2.  All  Christian  discussions  of  the  past  and  the  future 
jmust  be  religious,  and  filled  with  the  consciousness  ofjl 
;God  in  human  affairs.     God  is  in  history.     He  has  the'J 
initiative.     Where    others     see    blind     forces    working^j 
dumb  agony,  we  must  see  moral  will  working  toward  re-  ' 


224  A   THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL  GOSPEL 

demption  and  education.  A  religious  view  of  history 
involves  a  profound  sense  of  the  importance  of  moral 
;  issues  in  social  life.  Sin  ruins ;  righteousness  establishes, 
i  and  love  consolidates.  In  the  last  resort  the  issues  of 
\  future  history  lie  in  the  moral  qualities  and  religious 
■  faith  of  nations.  This  is  the  substance  of  all  Hebrew 
and  Christian  eschatology. 

3.  We  need  a  restoration  of  the  millenmal^oge,  which 
-  the   Catholic   Church   dropped   out  of   eschatology.     It 
was  crude  in  its  form  but  wholly  right  in  its  substance. 
The  duration  of  a  thousand  years  is  a  guess  and  imma- 
terial.    All  efforts  to  fix  "  times  and  seasons  "  are  futile. 
But  the  ideal  of  a  social  life  in  which  the  law  of  Christ 
'  shall  prevail,  and  in  which  its  prevalence  shall  result  in 
peace,  justice  and  a  glorious  blossoming  of  human  life, 
<>  is  a  Christian  ideal.     An  outlook  toward  the  future  in 
I  which  the  "  spiritual  life  "  is  saved  and  the  economic 
J  life  is  left  unsaved  is  both  unchristian  and  stupid.     If 
men  in  the  past  have  given  a  "  carnal  "  colouring  of  rich- 
ness to  the  millennial  hope,  let  us  renounce  that  part,  and 
leave  the  ideals  of  luxury  and  excess  to  men  of  the  pres- 
ent capitalistic  order.     Our  chief  interest  in  any  millen- 
jnium  is  the  desire  for  a  social  order  in  which  the  worth 
land  freedom  of  every  least  human  being  will  be  honoured 
land  protected ;  in  which  the  brotherhood  of  man  will  be 
expressed  in  the  common  possession  of  the  economic  re- 
sources of  society;  and  in  which  the  spiritual  good  of 
humanity  will  be  set  high  above  the  private  profit  in- 
terests of  all  materialistic  groups.     We  hope  for  such 
an  order  for  humanity  as  we  hope  for  heaven  for  our- 
selves. 


ESCHATOLOGY  225 

4.  As  to  the  way  in  which  the  Christian  ideal  ofj; 
society  is  to  come, —  we  must  shift  from  catastrophe  toj; 
development.  Since  the  first  century  the  divine  Logos 
has  taught  us  the  universality  of  Law,  and  we  must  ap- 
ply it  to  the  development  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  It  is 
the  untaught  and  pagan  mind  which  sees  God's  presence 
only  in  miraculous  and  thundering  action;  the  more 
Christian  our  intellect  becomes,  the  more  we  see  God  in 
growth.  By  insisting  on  organic  development  we  shall 
follow  the  lead  of  Jesus  when,  in  his  parables  of  the 
sower  and  of  the  seed  growing  secretly,  he  tried  to  edu- 
cate his  disciples  away  from  catastrophes  to  an  under- 
standing of  organic  growth.  We  shall  also  be  follow- 
ing the  lead  of  the  fourth  gospel,  which  translated  the 
terms  of  eschatology  into  the  operation  of  present  spir- 
itual forces.  We  shall  be  following  the  lead  of  the 
Church  i'n  bringing  the  future  hope,,  down  from  the 
clouds  and  identifying  it^'-with  the  Church;  except  that 
we_do_jiot^_gDnfine^^  it")tp_ihe_si  o  f  the 

Chur£h,..but_see_the  cj3mmg_pi_the.j\  oi_God  in  all 

ethical  and  spiritual  progress  of_  mankind.  To  convert 
the  catastrophic  terminology  of  the  old  eschatology  into 
developmental  terms  is  another  way  of  expressing  faith 
in  the  immanence  of  God  and  in  the  presence  of  Christ. 
It  is  more  religious  to  believe  in  a  present  than  in  an 
absent  and  future  Christ.  Jesus  saw  the  Kingdom  as 
present  and  future.  This  change  from  catastrophe  tcA 
development  is  the  most  essential  step  to  enable  moderni 
men  to  appreciate  the  Christian  hope.^  - 

1  Pfleiderer,  "  Grundriss  der  christlichen  Glaubenslehre/'  §17",  has 
this  fine  summary:     "The  primitive  Christian  faith  in  the  return  of 


226  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

5.  This  process  will  have  to  utilize  all  constructive  and 
5  educational  forces  in  humanity.     In  our  conception  of 

personal  regeneration,  likewise,  we  have  been  compelled  to 
think  less  of  emotional  crises  and  more  of  religious  nur- 
ture and  education.  The  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  will  be  the  regeneration  of  the  super-personal  life 
of  the  race,  and  will  work  out  a  social  expression  of  what 
was  contained  in  the  personality  of  Christ. 

6.  The  coming_pJ_the_Kmgdom_oJ__G^  not  be 
I  by  peaceful  development  only,  but  by  conflict  with  the 
■  Kingdom  of  Evjl.     We  should  estimate  the  power  of 

sin  too  lightly  if  we  forecast  a  smooth  road.  Nor  does 
the  insistence  on  continuous  development  eliminate  the 
possibility  and  value  of  catastrophes.  Political  and 
social  revolutions  may  shake  down  the  fortifications  of 
the  Kingdom  of  Evil  in  a  day.  The  Great  War  is  a 
catastrophic  stage  in  the  coming  of  'the  Kingdom  of  God. 
Its  direct  effects  will  operate  for  generations.  Our  de- 
scendants will  have  a  better  perspective  than  we  to  see 
how  all  the  sins  of  modern  civilization  have  brought 
forth  death  after  their  own  kind,  and  how  the  social 
repentance  of  nations  may  lay  the  foundation  for  a  new 
beginning. 

Christ  and  the  establishment  of  his  Kingdom  on  earth  embodied 
the  ideal  of  an  earthly  realization  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  It  set 
up  the  extensive  and  intensive  penetration  of  humanity  by  the 
Christian  spirit  as  the  aim  and  task  of  history.  The  victorious 
coming  and  kingly  rule  of  Christ  on  earth  is  achieved  by  the 
organization  of  all  mankind  in  a  fellowship  of  children  of  God,  and 
by  the  continuous  ethical  transformation  of  all  society  through  the 
power  of  the  Christian  spirit.  But  since  this  takes  place  within  the 
historic  life  of  nations,  the  process  is  bound  to  human  conditions 
and  limits." 


ESCHATOLOGY  22'J 

7.  An  eschatology   which   is   expressed   in  terms   of  ;| 
historic   development  has   no  final   consummation.     Its  | 
consummations  are  always  the  basis  for  further  develop- 
ment.    The   Kingdom   of   God  is  always  coming,   but  /  - 
we  can  never  say  "  Lo  here."     Theologians  often  assert 
that    this    would    be    unsatisfactory.     "  A    kingdom    of 
social  righteousness  can  never  be  perfect;  man  remains 
flesh;  new  generations  w'ould  have  to  be  trained  anew; 
only  by  a  world-catastrophe  can  the  Kingdom  of  glory 
be  realized."     Apparently  we  have  to  postulate  a  static 
condition  in  order  to  give  our  minds  a  rest;  an  endless 
perspective  of  development  is  too  taxing.     Fortunately 
God  is  not  tired  as  easily  as  we.     If  he  called  humanity 
to  a  halt  in  a  "  kingdom  of  glory,"  he  would  have  on 
his  hands  some  millions  of  eager  spirits  whom  he  has 
himself  trained  to  ceaseless  aspiration  and  achievement, 
and  they  would  be  dying  of  ennui.     Besides,  what  is  the 
use  of  a  perfect  ideal  which  never  happens?     A  progres- 
sive Kingdom  of  righteousness  happens  all  the  time  in 
instalments,  like  our  own  sanctification.     Our  race  will 
come  to  an  end  in  due  time;  the  astronomical  clock  is 
already  ticking  which  will  ring  in  the  end.     Meanwhile/ 
we  are  on  the  march  toward  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and 
getting  our  reward  by  every  fractional  realization  of  it) 
which  makes  us  hungry   for  more.     A  stationary  hu-| 
manity  would  be  a  dead  humanity.     The  life  of  the  race       "^ 
is  in  its  growth. 

Since  at  death  we  emigrate _f rom  Jhe__social_lif e_of  ^..^ 

mankmd,  the  future  life  of  the  individual  might  seem  to 

lie  outside  of  the  scope  of  our  discussion.     But  in  truth 


228  A   THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

our  conceptions  of  the  life  hereafter  are  deeply  af- 
fected by  the  fundamental  convictions  of  the  social  gos- 
pel. 

1,  There  is  no  inherent  contradiction  whatever  be- 
tween the  hope  of  the  progressive  development  of  man- 
kind toward  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  the  hope  of  the 
consummation  of  our  personal  life  in  an  existence  after 
death.  The  religious  belief  in  the  future  life  is  often 
bitterly  attacked  by  social  radicals  because  in  actual 
practice  the  deep  interest  in  it  which  is  cultivated  by  the 
Church,  weakens  interest  in  social  justice  and  acts  as  a 
narcotic  to  numb  the  sense  of  wrong.  The  more  the 
social  gospel  does  its  work  within  the  Church,  the  more 
will  this  moral  suspicion  against  the  doctrine  of  the 
future  life  lessen. 

2.  Belief  in  a  future  life  is  not  essential  to  religious 
faith.  The  religious  minds  who  speak  to  us  from  the 
pages  of  the  Old  Testament,  though  they  probably  be- 
lieved in  future  existence,  apparently  gained  neither 
comfort  nor  incentive  from  that  belief.  There  is  doubt- 
less an  increasing  number  of  religious  men  and  women 
today  who  find  their  satisfaction  in  serving  God  now, 
but  expect  their  personal  existence  to  end  at  death. 

The  hope  that  we  shall  survive  death  is  not  a  self- 
evident  proposition.  When  it  is  intelligent,  it  is  an  act 
of  faith, —  a  tremendous  assertion  of  faith.  It  may  get 
support  from  science,  from  philosophy,  or  from  psychical 
research,  but  its  main  supports  are  the  resurrection  _of 
Christ,  his  teachings,  and  the  common  faith  of  the 
Christian  Church,  which  all  embolden  the  individual. 
Further,  the  sense  of  personality,  which  is  intensified 


ESCHATOLOGY  229 

and  ennobled  by  the  Christian  Hfe,  and  rises  to  the  sense 
of  imperishable  worth  in  the  assurance  that  we  are 
children  of  God. 

3.  The  hope  of  a  higher  life  for  the  race  does  not  solve 
the  problem  of  the  individual.  It  is  a  matter  of  pro- 
found satisfaction  to  those  whose  life  has  really  matured 
and  been  effective  to  think  that  they  have  made  a  con- 
tribution to  the  richness  and  the  redemption  of  the  race. 
But  none  of  us  lives  out  his  life  fully.  There  arc  en- 
dowments in  us  which  have  never  been  put  to  use  for 
others,  and  tastes  and  cravings  which  have  been  starved 
and  suppressed.  Moreover  only  a  small  percentage  of 
men  and  women  under  present  conditions  are  able  to 
develop  their  powers  beyond  the  feeblest  beginnings. 
A  large  percentage  die  in  childhood;  uncounted  others 
have  been  used  up  by  labour, —  shrunken  and  intimi- 
dated souls.  Where__do__tiiey__come  in  ?  Is  it  enough 
for  thern  tjo  Jhink  that  they  have  been  laid  like  sills  in 
the  mud  that  future  generations  may  live  in  the  mansion 
erected  on  their  dead  bodies  and  souls  ?  Besides,  the 
best  society  on  earth  can  not  last  for  ever.  This  planet 
may  end  at  any  time  and  it  is  sure  to  die  by  collision  or 
old  age  some  time.  What  then  will  be  the  net  product 
of  all  our  labours?  Plainly  a  man  has  a  larger  and 
completer  hope  if  he  looks  forward  to  eternal  life  for 
himself  as  well  as  to  a  better  destiny  for  the  race. 

4.  It  is  our  business,  however,   to  christianize  both  i; 
expectations.     It    is    possible    to    fear    hell    and    desire 
heaven  in  a  pagan  spirit,  with  a  narrow-minded  selfish- 
ness that  cares  nothing   for  others,  and   is   simply  an 
extension  to  the  future  life  of  the  grabbing  spirit  fos- 


230  A   THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

tered  by  the  Kingdom  of  Evil.  The  desire  for  heaven 
gets  Christian  dignity  and  quaHty  only  when  it  arises  on 
the  basis  of  that  solidaristic  state  of  mind  which  is  cul- 
tivated by  the  social  gospel. 

;      5.  Two   theories,    quite   unlike,    are   held   as   private 
''  opinions    by    many    Christian    individuals,    though    not 
sanctioned  by  traditional  theology.     The  theory  of  con- 
ditional, ..imrnortality   is   largely  based  on  evolutionary 
ideas.     It  holds  that  only  those  will  survive  who  have 
^  attained  to  a  spiritual  life  capable  of  surviving.     The 
theory  of  re-incarnation,  which  has  been  held  by  a  few 
eminent  minds  in  theology  and  by  many  outside  of  it, 
comes  to  us  mostly  through  theosophical  channels  from 
the  East.     It  teaches  that  we  live  in  a  succession  of  lives, 
'  each  of  them  adapted  to  the  spiritual  attainments  of  the 
\  individual  and  disciplinary  in  its  effect ;  through  them 
we  can  gradually  exhaust  the  possibilities  of  human  life 
and  rise  to  spiritual  levels  above  man. 

The  social  gospel  could  utilize  the  latter  idea  if  it 
were  commonly  held.  It  would  be  an  attractive  idea  to 
those  who  have  fought  for  humanity,  to  come  back  to 
this  earth  and  help  on  the  Cause  once  more,  beginning 
afresh  on  the  basis  of  the  experiences  and  character 
attained  in  the  present  life.  The  reward  of  a  fine  life, 
then,  would  be  more  life  of  the  same  kind.  On  the 
other  hand  there  would  be  remarkable  chances  of  retri- 
bution and  purgation.  A  man  who  has  prostituted 
women,  might  be  re-incarnated  as  a  prostitute  and  see 
how  he  likes  it.  A  woman  who  has  lived  softly  on  the 
proceeds   of  child  labour  might  be  re-born  as  a  little 


ESCHATOLOGY 


231 


Georgia  girl  working  in  a  cotton  mill.  A  man  who  has 
helped  to  lynch  a  negro,  might  be  born  in  a  black  skin 
and  be  lynched  by  his  own  grandsons. 

Both  theories,  however,  are  somewhat  aristocratic  in 
their  effect.  When  we  consider  the  terrible  inequality 
of  opportunity  for  spiritual  development  in  our  present 
world,  it  does  not  convey  a  sense  of  Christian  solidarity 
to  think  of  a  minority  climbing  into  eternal  life  while 
the  majority  wilt  away  like  unfertilized  blossoms. 

The  theory  of  re-incarnation  seems  to  offer  a  fair 
chance  for  all,  provided  each  soul  is  really  started  in  the 
exact  environment  which  it  has  earned  by  its  past  life 
and  in  which  it  can  best  develop  for  the  future.  The- 
osophists  have  devised  a  spiritual  bureaucracy  of 
"  Masters  "  or  higher  spiritual  beings  who  manage  this 
very  essential  matter.  In  actual  practice  it  is  interesting 
to  observe  that  those  who  profess  to  have  a  recollection 
of  past  existences,  all  seem  to  have  been  stately  and 
famous  personages.  They  do  sometimes  become  savages 
or  courtesans  for  one  life-time  to  expiate  dark  deeds  of 
vengeance,  or  as  interesting  slumming  expeditions.  The 
plain  people  who  just  raise  hogs  or  sell  cheese  in  one 
existence,  seem  to  forget  it  in  the  next,  which  is  very 
human. 

It  is  a  more  serious  question  whether  this  doctrine  is 
not  incompatible  with  social  unrest  and  indignation.  If 
the  poor  are  in  their  present  condition  because  they  have 
deserved  it  in  a  previous  life,  why  should  we  worry  about 
them?  The  present  child-labourers  may  be  former 
stock-holders  who  have  come  back  to  get  the  other  side, 
and  we  should  be  interfering  with  justice  by  trying  to 


232  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

Uplift  them.  If  people  living  in  bad  tenements  are  in 
the  conditions  best  adapted  to  their  future  spiritual  de- 
velopment in  later  incarnations,  we  may  be  tampering 
with  things  too  high  for  us  in  condemning  the  tenements. 
This  doctrine  explains  the  present  inequalities  too  well. 
It  seems  to  cut  the  nerve  of  the  social  movement  much 
more  effectively  than  the  hope  of  heaven  ever  did. 

Of  course  the  Christian  realm  of  grace  would  dis- 
appear, and  a  reign  of  Karma  and  exact  retribution  would 
supplant  it. 

6.  The  most  unattractive  element  in  the  orthodox 
outlook  on  the  future  life  is  the  immediate  fixity  of  the 
two  states.  When  we  die,  our  destiny  is  immediately 
and  irrevocably  settled  for  us.  As  the  Westminster 
Larger  Catechism  (Question  86)  has  it: 

The  communion  in  glory  with  Christ,  which  the  members  of 
the  invisible  church  enjoy  immediately  after  death,  is  in  that 
their  souls  are  then  made  perfect  in  holiness  and  received  into 
the  highest  heavens,  where  they  behold  the  face  of  God  in  light 
and  glory;  waiting  for  the  full  redemption  of  their  bodies, 
which  even  in  death  continue  united  to  Christ,  and  rest  in  their 
graves  as  in  beds,  till  at  the  last  day  they  be  again  united  to 
their  souls.  Whereas  the  souls  of  the  wicked  are  at  their  death 
cast  into  hell,  where  they  remain  in  torments  and  utter  dark- 
ness; and  their  bodies  kept  in  their  graves,  as  in  their  prisons, 
until  the  resurrection  and  judgment  of  the  great  day. 

This  belief  was  novel  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation, 
and  the  precision  and  emphasis  of  this  statement  are 
directed  against  the  idea  of  purgatory.  The  idea  of  a 
fixed  condition  is  so  unlike  any  life  we  know  and  so 
contradictory  of  our  aspirations  that  our  imagination 
stands  still  before  a  tedious  sameness  of  bliss.     The  rich 


ESCHATOLOGY  233 

diversification  in  Dante  shows  the  possibihty  of  the  other 
view.^  We  want  the  possibility  of  growth.  We  can 
not  conceive  of  finite  existence  or  of  human  happiness 
except  in  terms  of  growth.  It  would  be  more  satis- 
factory for  modern  minds  and  for  Christian  minds  to 
think  of  an  unlimited  scale  of  ascent  toward  God,  reach- 
ing from  the  lowest  to  the  highest,  within  which  every 
spirit  would  hold  the  place  for  which  it  was  fitted,  and 
each  could  advance  as  it  grew.  This  would  satisfy  our 
sense  of  justice.  Believers  in  the  social  gospel  will 
probably  agree  that  some  people  have  deserved  hell  and 
ought  to  get  theirs.  But  no  man,  in  any  human  sense 
of  justice,  has  deserved  an  eternity  of  hell.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  jars  our  sense  of  justice  to  see  some  individuals 
go  to  heaven  totally  exempt.  They  have  given  hell  to 
others  and  ought  to  have  a  taste  of  it  somewhere,  even  if 
they  are  regenerate  and  saved  men. 

7.  This  idea  would  also  satisfy  our  Christian  faith  in 
the  redeeming  mercy  of  God.  In  this  ascending  scale 
of  beings  none  would  be  so  high  that  he  could  not  be 
drawn  still  closer  to  God,  and  none  so  low  that  he  would 
be  beyond  the  love  of  God,  God  would  still  be  teaching 
and  saving  all.  If  we  learned  in  heaven  that  a  minority 
were  in  hell,  we  should  look  at  God  to  see  what  he  was 
going  to  do  about  it;  and  if  he  did  nothing,  we  should 
look  at  Jesus  to  see  how  this  harmonized  with  what  he 
taught  us  about  his  Father;  and  if  he  did  nothing,  some- 
thing  would    die   out   of   heaven.     Jonathan    Edwards 

1  Prof.  William  Adams  Brown,  in  the  closing  pages  of  his 
"  Christian  Theology  in  Outline,"  points  out  the  need  for  progress, 
and  explains  the  hold  which  the  doctrine  of  purgatory  has  on 
Catholics. 


234  A    THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

demanded  that  we  should  rejoice  in  the  damnation  of 
those  whom  the  sovereign  election  of  God  abandoned  to 
everlasting  torment.  Very  justly,  for  we  ought  to  be 
able  to  rejoice  in  what  God  does.  But  we  can  not  rejoice 
in  hell.  It  can't  be  done.  At  least  by  Christians.  The 
more  Christian  Christ  has  made  a  soul,  the  more  it 
would  mourn  for  the  lost  brothers.  The  conception  of 
i  a  permanent  hell  was  tolerable  only  while  God  was  con- 
j  ceived  as  an  autocratic  sovereign  dealing  with  his  sub- 
jects ;  it  becomes  intolerable  when  the  Father  deals  with 
his  children. 

To-day  many  Protestants  are  allowing  the  physical 
fires  of  hell  to  go  out,  and  make  the  pain  of  hell  to 
consist  in  the  separation  from  God.  They  base  the 
continuance  of  hell,  not  on  the  sovereign  decree  of  God 
but  on  the  progressive  power  of  sin  which  gradually  ex- 
tinguishes all  love  of  good  and  therewith  all  capacity 
for  salvation.  But  this  remains  to  be  proven.  Who 
has  ever  met  a  man  that  had  no  soft  spot  of  tenderness, 
no  homesick  yearning  after  uprightness  left  in  him?  If 
God  has  not  locked  the  door  of  hell  from  the  outside, 
but  men  remain  in  it  because  they  prefer  the  darkness, 
then  there  is  bound  to  be  a  Christian  invasion  of  hell. 
All  the  most  Christian  souls  in  heaven  would  get  down 
there  and  shaie  the  life  of  the  wicked,  in  the  high  hope 
that  after  all  some  scintilla  of  heavenly  fire  was  still 
smouldering  and  could  be  fanned  into  life.  And  they 
would  be  headed  by  Him  who  could  not  stand  it  to  think 
of  ninety-nine  saved  and  one  caught  among  the  thorns. 
The  idea  of  two  fixed  groups  does  not  satisfy  any  real 
requirement.     Men  justly  feared  the  earlier  Universal- 


ESCHATOLOGY  235 

ist  doctrine  that  all  men  enter  salvation  at  death.  That 
took  sin  lightly  and  offended  the  sense  of  justice.  The 
idea  of  a  scale  of  life  in  which  each  would  be  as  far 
from  God  and  in  as  much  darkness  and  narrowness  as 
he  deserved,  would  constitute  a  grave  admonition  to 
every  soul.  Indeed  it  would  contain  more  summons  to 
self-discipline  than  the  present  idea  that  as  long  as  a  man 
is  saved  at  all,  he  is  saved  completely  and  escapes  all 
consequences.  To-day  the  belief  in  hell  has  weakened 
in  great  numbers  of  people,  and  in  that  case  there  is  no 
element  of  fear  at  all  to  aid  men  in  self-control.  The 
Christian  idea  would  have  to  combine  the  just  effects  of 
sin  for  all  and  the  operation  of  saving  mercy  on  all. 

8.  Our  personal  eschatology  is  characterized  by  an 
unsocial  individualism.  In  the  present  life  we  are  bound 
up  with  wife  and  children,  with  friends  and  work-mates, 
in  a  warm  organism  of  complex  life.  When  we  die, 
we  join  —  what?  A  throng  of  souls,  an  unorganized 
crowd  of  saints,  who  each  carry  a  harp  and  have  not 
even  organized  an  orchestra.  The  question  is  even 
debated  whether  we  shall  know  each  other  in  heaven, 
and  whether  we  shall  remember  and  have  a  sense  of  our 
identity.  What  satisfaction  would  there  be  in  talking 
to  Isaiah  or  Paul  if  they  could  not  remember  what  books 
they  wrote  and  at  last  set  our  minds  at  rest  on  those 
questions  of  criticism?  Anyone  trained  in  the  mind  of 
Christ  by  the  social  gospel  wants  organic  relations  of 
duty  and  friendship.  How  can  we  become  more  Christ- 
like on  earth  or  in  heaven  except  by  love  and  service? 
The  chief  effort  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  our  earthly  life 


2^6         ■     A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL 

was  to  develop  our  capacity  for  love  and  our  sense  of 
solidarity  and  responsibility.     Is  this  training  to  go  for 
nothing  in  heaven,  or  is  this  present  life  the  real  prepa- 
ration for  the  kind  of  life  we  are  to  live  there,  and  the 
basis  for  promotion  and  growth?     If  the  future  life  is  to 
be  the  consummation  of  all  that  is  good  and  divine  here, 
it  must  offer  fellowship  with  God  and  man.     This  is  the 
point  to  be  insisted  on  in  our  popular  teaching,  and  not 
the  painlessness  and  the  eternal  rest. 
9.  And  how  about  labour  and  service?     Is  not  our 
1  heaven  too  much  a  heaven  of  idleness?     It  looks  as  if  it 
\  had  been  conceived  by  oppressed  and  exploited  people 
who  regarded  labour  as  a  curse  and  wanted  a  rest  more 
than  anything  else.     The  social  gospel  wants  to  see  all 
men  on  earth  at  productive  work,  but  none  doing  too 
much  of  it.     It  carries  that  expectation  into  the  idea  of 
heaven.     Dr.  William  N.  Clarke,  who  was  a  most  loving 
heart  and  had  no  child  of  his  own,  makes  the  point  in 
his    "  Outline    of    Christian    Theology "    (pp.    419-20) 
that  a  third  part  of  humanity  dies  in  childhood,  with 
undeveloped    personality.     "  This    significant    fact    has 
never  yet  been  admitted  to  the  popular  thought  of  the 
future  life,  or  exerted  its  due  influence  in  theology."     If 
these  youthful  spirits  are  to  grow   and  develop,   they 
must  live  a  life  of  free  and  responsible  action.     If  the 
children  in  heaven  need  education  and   care,   "  oppor- 
tunities of  usefulness  and  help  must  open  in  inexhaustible 
abundance  to  those  who  are  farther  advanced  in  holy 
experience,  and  the  heavenly  life  must  be  intensely  active 
and  interesting."     Dr.  Clarke  thought  this  was  "  a  vast 
enrichment  of  our  ideas  of  the  other  world." 


ESCHATOLOGY  237 

This  is  a  thought  worthy  of  a  man  who  followed  a 
Master  that  gathered  the  children  to  his  heart.  The 
social  gospel  would  add  the  kindred  fact  that  a  further 
large  proportion  of  individuals  are  left  so  underde- 
veloped by  our  earthly  social  system  that  they  deserve 
a  heavenly  post-graduate  course  to  make  it  up  to  them.; 
It  would  be  a  great  joy  in  heaven  to  find  men  troopings 
in  from  mines  and  shops,  and  women  from  restaurant ; 
kitchens  and  steaming  laundries,  and  getting  their  longj 
delayed  college  education.  {'^  i 

This  suggests  another  form  of  service.  We  are  all 
conscious  of  having  failed  in  some  of  our  human  rela- 
tions, giving  indifference  instead  of  sympathy,  idleness  . 
instead  of  service,  laying  our  burdens  on  others  without 
lending  a  hand  with  theirs.  Some  have  done  little  in 
the  sum  total  of  their  life  except  to  add  to  the  weight 
on  others,  and  monopolizing  the  opportunities  which 
ought  to  have  been  shared  by  many.  The  future  life 
offers  a  chance  for  reparation,  not  by  way  of  kindness 
but  of  justice.  Suppose  that  a  stockholder  has  taken 
large  dividends  out  of  a  mill-town,  leaving  only  the  bare 
minimum  to  the  workers,  and  stripping  their  lives  of 
what  could  humanize  them.  He  followed  the  custom 
of  his  day,  and  the  point  of  view  of  his  social  class  hid 
the  injustice  from  his  conscience.  But  in  the  other 
world  he  sees  things  differently  and  becomes  a  belated 
convert  to  the  social  gospel.  About  him  are  the  men 
and  women  whose  souls  he  has  starved.  Would  not 
justice  demand  that  he  remain  on  the  lower  levels  of  life 
with  them  until  he  was  able  to  take  upward  with  him  all 
whom  he  had  retarded?     Suppose  that  a  man  sent  a 


238  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

child  into  life  without  accepting  the  duties  of  father- 
hood, breaking  the  spirit  of  a  girl  and  her  family,  and 
leaving  his  child  to  be  submerged  in  poverty  and  vice. 
Would  it  not  be  just  and  Christian  to  require  that  he 
serve  the  soul  of  his  child  until  it  is  what  it  might  have 
been?  Such  labour  and  expiation  might  well  keep  us 
busy  for  some  part  of  eternity,  and  in  doing  it,  relation- 
ships of  love  and  service  would  be  formed  which  would 
make  us  fit  to  live  closer  to  the  Source  of  Love. 

Of  course  some  of  the  ideas  I  have  ventured  to  put 
down  are  simply  the  play  of  personal  fancy  about  a 
fascinating  subject.  There  are  only  a  few  things  which 
we  can  claim  with  any  assurance,  and  these  are  not  based 
on  a  single  prediction,  or  on  some  passage,  the  origin  or 
meaning  of  which  may  be  disputed,  but  on  the  substance 
of  the  gospel  of  Christ.  These  are :  that  the  love  of  God 
will  go  out  forever  to  his  children,  and  especially  to  the 
neediest,  drawing  them  to  him  and,  where  necessary, 
saving  them;  that  personality  energized  by  God  is  ever 
growing;  that  the  law  of  love  and  solidarity  will  be  even 
more  effective  in  heaven  than  on  earth;  and  that  sal- 
vation, growth,  and  solidarity  are  conditioned  on  inter- 
change of  service. 

The  worth  of  personality,  freedom,  growth,  love, 
solidarity,  service, —  these  are  marks  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  In  Christ's  thought  the  Kingdom  of  God  was  to 
come  from  heaven  to  earth,  so  that  God's  will  would  be 
done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven.  So  then  it  exists  in 
heaven;  it  is  to  be  created  on  earth.  All  true  joys  on 
earth  come  from  partial  realizations  of  the  Kingdom  of 


ESCHATOLOGY  239 

God;  the  joy  that  awaits  us  will  consist  in  living  within! 
the   full  realization  of  the  Kingdom.     Our  labour   foe] 
the  Kingdom  here  will  be  our  preparation  for  our  par- J 
ticipation   hereafter.     The   degree    in   which   we   have 
absorbed  the  laws  of  the  Kingdom  into  our  character  ^ 
will  determine  our  qualification  for  the  life  of  heaven.  • 
If  in  any  respect  we  have  not  been  saved  from  the  King- 
dom of  Evil,  we  shall  be  aliens  and  beginners  in  the 
Kingdom  of  God.     Thus  heaven  and  earth  are  to  be 
parts  of  the  same  realm.     Spiritual  influences  come  to 
us ;  spiritual  personalities  go  out  from  us.     When  our 
life  is  in  God  it  has  continuity. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL   AND   THE   ATONEMENT 

To  countless  Christian  minds  the  doctrine  of  the  atone- 
ment has  been  the  marrow  of  theology.  We  have  re- 
served it  for  the  close  of  our  discussion.  Does  the  social 
gospel  contain  anything  which  would  verify,  interpret, 
quicken,  or  expand  that  doctrine?  And  Vv'hat  form  of 
the  doctrine  would  best  express  and  support  the  social 
gospel  ? 

The  theological  interpretation  of  the  death  of  Christ 
has  a  long  and  varied  history.  It  will  aid  us  in  estimat- 
ing our  modern  needs  if  we  pass  it  briefly  in  review. 

To  the  first  disciples  the  death  of  their  Lord  was  an 
^astonishing  catastrophe,  an  unexpected,  terrible,  and  ap- 
parently impossible  outcome  of  the  work  of  the  Messiah. 
For  that  very  reason  they  craved  an  explanation  of  the 
event  which  would  interpret  it  as  a  fundamental  part  of 
God's  plan.  Their  method  was  to  prove  that  it  had  been 
foretold  throughout  the  Scripture  and  foreshadowed  by 
typology.  Paul  was  the  first  to  give  the  death  of  our 
Lord  a  really  central  position  in  a  theological  system. 

But  the  early  Church  never  appropriated  or  utilized 
more  than  a  few  leading  ideas  of  Paul.  The  most  popu- 
lar and  elaborate  theological  explanation  was  the  theory 
that  Christ's  death  was  a  ransom  paid  to  Satan.  By  the 
fall  the  human  race  became  subject  to  Satan,  and  he  had 
240 


THE    SOCIAL   GOSPEL   AND    THE    ATONEMENT        24I 

a  rightful  claim  on  it  as  its  sovereign.  God  in  mercy 
desired  to  emancipate  humanity  from  the  thraldom  of 
Satan,  but  would  not  use  his  superior  power  to  wrest 
from  'him  what  was  his  by  legal  right.  So  he  offered 
Christ  to  Satan  as  a  ransom  in  exchange,  and  Satan 
gladly  accepted.  But  in  killing  the  sinless  Christ,  Satan 
overstepped  his  legal  claims  and  thereby  forfeited  all  his 
rights.  Or,  according  to  other  Fathers,  Satan  was  at- 
tracted by  the  human  beauty  of  Christ,  but  did  not  real- 
ize that  this  was  the  incarnate  Logos;  the  marriage  of 
Mary  to  Joseph  had  concealed  from  him  the  mystery  of 
the  incarnation.  God  knew  beforehand  that  even  if 
Satan  took  possession  of  the  ransom,  he  could  never  hold 
Christ.  So  God  offered  Satan  a  bait  and  tricked  him. 
When  Satan  tried  to  imprison  Christ  in  Hades,  he  burst 
the  gates  and  came  forth  with  a  throng  of  souls.  This 
legal  negotiation  between  two  sovereigns  reminds  one  of 
modern  diplomacy.  A  few  Fathers  objected  to  the  ele- 
-ment  of  trickery,  but  on  the  whole  this  was  the  orthodox 
'  theology  till  Anselm  of  Canterbury  substituted  something 
better  for  it  in  A.  D.  1098. 

Anselm's  doctrine  was  a  real  advance  in  ethical  and 
religious  insight.  Its  main  points  are  these :  Our  sin  has 
robbed  God  of  the  honour  due  him ;  an  equivalent  must  be 
offered  him  before  he  can  forgive  sin;  we  ourselves  can 
■\  not  render  the  "satisfaction  "  due  to  him ;  God  alone  can ; 
therefore  God  had  to  become  man;  being  divine  and  sin- 
less, his  death  furnished  an  offset  and  equivalent  for  the 
boundless  sins  of  mankind. 

This  theory  has  furnished  the  ground-work  for  ortho- 
dox theology  ever  since  Anselm.     Yet  it  raises  unanswer- 


242  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

able  questions  and  in  some  respects  offends  our  Christian 
•^convictions.  How  can  it  satisfy  justice  to  have  an  inno- 
cent one  die  in  place  of  the  guilty?  How  can  God  pay 
an  equivalent  to  himself?  If  the  debt  due  to  God  has 
been  paid  by  the  death  of  Christ,  why  is  it  any  longer  an 
act  of  grace  on  the  part  of  God  to  remit  sin?  The  debt 
we  owe  to  God  is  not  a  financial  but  a  moral  debt;  an- 
other man  may  discharge  a  debt  of  $ioo  for  me,  but  no 
man  can  discharge  my  obligations  as  a  son  or  as  a  father 
for  me;  how  then  can  the  debt  we  owe  to  God  be  paid 
by  another?  If  Christ  fulfilled  the  law  for  us,  why  are 
we  still  obliged  to  fulfil  it?  These  questions  shock  our 
Christian  feeling.  This  is  where  we  get  when  Vv^e  try  to 
formulate  the  relations  between  God  and  us  on  the  basis 
of  law  and  in  forensic  terms.  It  ends  in  wiping  out  the 
love  and  mercy  of  God,  our  most  essential  Christian 
conviction. 

The  Reformation  made  no  essential  change  in  this  doc- 
trine. Lutherans  and  Calvinists  on  the  whole  taught 
the  same  outline  of  atonement.  God,  in  mercy  toward 
fallen  humanity,  sent  his  Son,  who  shared  both  the  di- 
vine and  human  nature,  in  order  to  redeem  and  recon- 
cile. The  justice  of  God  demands  the  condemnation  of 
all.  God  can  exercise  mercy  only  if  vicarious  satisfaction 
is  rendered.  The  infinite  worth  of  the  divine  nature  in 
Christ  makes  his  suffering  an  equivalent  for  the  infinite 
sins  of  mankind.  Christ  experienced  the  wrath  of  God 
in  his  suffering,  and  that  wrath  is  now  satisfied,  so  that 
God  can  forgive. 

These  traditional  theological  explanations  of  the  death 
of  Christ  have  less  biblical  authority  than  we  are  ac- 


THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL   AND   THE   ATONEMENT        243 

customed  to  suppose.  The  fundamental  terms  and 
ideas  — "  satisfaction,"  "  substitution/'  "  imputation," 
"  merit  " —  are  post-biblical  ideas,  and  are  alien  from 
the  spirit  of  the  gospel. 

It  is  important  to  note  that  every  theory  of  the  atone-  \ 
ment  necessarily  used  terms  and  analogies  taken  from  the  | 
social  life  of  that  age,  and  that  the  spirit  and  problems  off  ' 
contemporary  life  are  always  silent  factors  in  the  con-|  , 
struction  of  theory.  The  early  Church  set  the  model  off 
formulating  the  doctrine  in  the  terminology  of  sacrificed 
To  us  sacrificing  is  a  matter  of  antiquarian  knowledge, 
kept  alive  mainly  by  the  Bible.  To  Christians  of  the 
first  three  centuries  it  was  a  social  institution  which  they 
saw  in  operation  all  about  them.  Paul  saw  in  the  death 
of  Christ  the  solution  of  the  great  social  problem  of  his 
life,  the  abolition  of  the  Jewish  Law  and  the  emancipation 
of  Gentile  missions.  The  theory  that  the  death  of  Christ 
was  a  ransom  to  Satan  was  the  outgrowth  of  the  semi- 
dualistic  religion  of  the  Empire  and  the  prevalent  belief 
in  the  rule  of  demons.  Anselm's  theory  seems  to  me 
clearly  the  product  of  the  penitential  practices  of  the 
medieval  Church,  within  which  Anselm  lived  and  moved 
and  which  was  his  social  order.  Every  priest  in  the 
confessional  was  constantly  assessing  the  delinquencies 
of  men  in  terms  of  penalty  and  merit,  and  assigning  so 
much  inconvenience  or  suffering  as  a  "  satisfaction  "  for 
so  much  sin.  Perhaps  the  commercial  and  governmental 
theories  of  later  Protestantism  were  the  natural  social 
product  of  the  age  of  capitalistic  merchants  and  of  limited 
monarchies. 


244  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

These  social  realities  which  lay  back  of  the  theories 
gave  them  their  influence  and  convincing  power  at  the 
time  they  originated  and  for  a  long  time  thereafter,  but 
when  these  social  realities  disappear,  the  theories  of 
the  atonement  based  on  them  become  artificial  and  un- 
convincing, and  sometimes  repulsive.  Analogies  and  il- 
lustrations taken  from  the  priestly  slaughtering  of  ani- 
mals or  the  ritual  functions  of  the  Jewish  high-priest  are 
remote,  from  our  imagination,  and  instead  of  clarifying 
the  facts,  they  themselves  need  elaborate  explanation. 
Forensic  methods  and  the  dealings  of  autocratic  rulers 
arouse  our  moral  antagonism  and  have  brought  the  teach- 
ings about  the  atonement  under  suspicion. 
,  Our  dominant  ideas  are  personality  and  social  soli- 
darity. The  problems  which  burden  us  are  the  social 
problems.  Has  the  death  of  Christ  any  relation  to  these  ? 
Have  we  not  just  as  much  right  to  connect  this  supreme 
religious  event  with  our  problems  as  Paul  and  Anselm 
and  Calvin,  and  to  use  the  terminology  and  methods  of 
our  day?  In  so  far  as  the  historical  and  social  sciences 
have  taught  our  generation  to  comprehend  solidaristic 
facts,  we  are  in  a  better  situation  to  understand  the  atone- 
ment than  any  previous  generation. 

As  Christian  men  we  believe  that  the  death  of  our  Lord 
concerns  us  all.  Our  sins  caused  it.  He  bore  the  sin 
of  the  world.  In  turn  his  death  was  somehow  for  our 
good.  Our  spiritual  situation  is  fundamentally  changed 
in  consequence  of  it.  But  how?  How  did  he  bear  our 
sins?  How  did  his  death  affect  God?  How  did  it  af- 
fect us  ?     These  three  questions  we  shall  discuss. 


THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL    AND   THE    ATONEMENT        245 

How  did  Jesus  bear  sins  which  he  did  not  commit? 

The  old  theology  replied,  by  imputation.  But  guilt 
and  merit  are  personal.  They  can  not  be  transferred 
from  one  person  to  another.  We  tamper  with  moral 
truth  when  we  shuffle  them  about.  Imputation  is  a  legal 
device  to  enable  the  law  to  hold  one  man  responsible  for 
the  crime  committed  by  another.  Imputation  sees  man- 
kind as  a  mass  of  individuals,  and  the  debts  of  every 
individual  are  transferred  to  Christ.  The  solution  does 
not  lie  in  that  way. 

Neither  is  it  enough  to  say  that  Jesus  bore  our  sins  by 
sympathy.  His  contact  with  sin  was  a  matter  of  expe- 
rience as  well  as  sympathy,  and  experience  cuts  deeper. 
Child-birth  and  travail  reveal  the  realities  of  life  to  a 
woman  more  than  sympathetic  observation. 

How  did  Jesus  bear  our  sins?  The  bar  to  a  true  un- 
derstanding of  the  atonement  has  been  our  individualism. 
The  solution  of  the  problem  lies  in  the  recognition  of 
solidarity. 

By  his  human  life  Jesus  was  bound  up  backward  and 
forward  and  sideward  with  the  life  of  humanity.  He 
received  the  influences  of  the  historical  life  of  the  Jewish 
people  through  the  channels  of  social  tradition,  and  he 
transmitted  the  effects  of  his  own  life  and  personality  to 
the  future  throu'gh  the  same  channels.  Palestine  was 
only  a  little  corner  of  the  Roman  Empire,  but  the  full  life 
of  humanity  was  there,  just  as  a  man's  little  finger  is 
filled  with  the  flow  of  life  which  nourishes  his  whole 
body.  Even  the  feeblest  mind  has  some  consciousness 
of  the  tide  of  life  playing  about  him.  The  stronger  and 
more  universal  a  human  personality  is,  the  more  will  he 


246  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

consciously  absorb  the  general  life  and  identify  himself 
;with  it.  To  a  _genius^  or  to  one  whose  social  feeling  is 
made  vivid  and  sensitive  by  love,  even  small  experiences 
unlock  hfe,  and  from  a  small  circle  one  may  prolong  great 
sectors  into  the  wider  concentric  circles,  Jesus  had  an 
unparalleled  sense  of  solidarity.  Thereby  he  had  the 
capacity  to  generalize  his  personal  experiences  and  make 
them  significant  of  the  common  life. 

Now,  this  race  life  of  ours  is  pervaded  by  sin;  not  only 
by  sporadic  acts  of  folly,  waywardness,  vice  or  crime 
which  spring  spontaneously  from  human  life,  but  by 
organized  forces  and  institutions  of  evil  which  have 
stabilized  the  power  of  sin  and  made  it  effective.  Our 
analysis  of  race  sin  culminated  in  the  recognition  of  a 
Kingdom  of  Evil  (Chapter  IX).  Jesus  lived  in  the  midst 
of  that  Kingdom,  and  it  was  this  which  killed  him. 

Every  personal  act  of  sin,  however  isolated  it  may 
seem,  is  connected  with  racial  sin.  Evil  social  customs 
and  ideas  stimulate  or  facilitate  it ;  in  turn  it  strengthens 
the  social  suggestion  to  evil  for  others. 

But  personal  transgression  does  not  develop  moral 
force  and  resentment  enough  to  slay  the  prophets  of 
God.  It  takes  public  and  organized  evil  to  do  that. 
When  a  travelling  pedlar  cheats  a  farmer's  wife,  he  is 
part  and  parcel  of  an  ancient  system  of  business  which 
overreaches  the  customer  if  it  can.  But  if  the  pedlar 
learns  that  a  socialist  editor  is  advocating  a  system  of 
production  which  would  abolish  him  and  his  cunning,  he 
does  not  waylay  and  kill  the  editor  to  stop  his  pen.  On 
the  other  hand  if  trade  and  finance  have  developed  a 
lucrative  system  of  evil  income,  such  as  the  American 


THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL   AND    THE    ATONEMENT        247 

slave  trade,  or  the  English  opium  trade,  or  the  univer- 
sal liquor  traffic,  or  Five  Power  Loans  to  China,  or  a 
monopoly  of  colonial  trade,  then  it  will  resist  interfer- 
ence. The  gigantic  collective  pedlar  will  blast  reputa- 
tions by  the  press  he  controls,  break  men  financially  by 
the  bank  credit  he  controls,  or  ruin  men  politically  by  the 
party  machinery  or  official  power  he  controls.  When  ^,>  ^.i- 
Evil  is  organized,  the  prophets  suffer.  There  is  prob- 
ably not  a  single  State  of  our  Union  which  has  not  seen 
the  reputation  and  financial  or  political  standing  of  good 
men  killed  in  cold  blood  because  they  sincerely  opposed 
high  class  graft. 

These  public  evils  so  pervade  the  social  life  of  human- 
ity in  all  times  and  all  places  that  no  one  can  share  the 
common  life  of  our  race  without  coming  under  the  effect 
of  these  collective  sins.     He  will  either  sin  by  consenting 
in  them,  or  he  will  suffer  by  resisting  them.     Jesus  did 
not  in  any  real  sense  bear  the  sin  of  some  ancient  Briton 
who  beat  up  his  wife  in  B.  C.  56,  or  of  some  mountaineer 
in  Tennessee  who  got  drunk  in  A.  D.  19 17.     But  he  did    i 
in  a  very  real  sense  bear  the  weight  of  the  public  sins  of  f  •  '  ./^ 
organized  society,  and  they  in  turn  are  causally  connected  |        ^ 
with  all  private  sins. 

As  one  looks  across  human  history  with  a  mind  en- 
lightened by  the  thought  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  he  sees 
a  few  great  permanent  evils  which  have  blighted  the  life 
of  the  race  and  of  every  individual  in  it.  They  always 
change  their  form  and  yet  remain  the  same  in  substance. 
Seize  and  fight  the  power  of  evil  at  any  point,  as  you  will, 
and  soon  one  of  these  ruling  evils  will  lift  its  head  and 


248  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL 

strike  back  at  you.  The  stronger  and  more  influential 
a  man's  life  is,  and  the  broader  his  moral  interests,  the 
deeper  will  be  his  experience  of  these  chief  evils.  I  have 
been  impressed  with  the  fact  that  so  many  of  them 
plainly  converged  on  Jesus  and  had  a  part  in  doing  him  to 
death. 

These  evils  were  not  as  gigantic  and  fully  developed  in 
Palestine  as  they  have  been  in  the  great  Empires,  includ- 
ing our  own.  But  the  fact  that  even  in  this  remote  cor- 
ner of  the  ancient  world  they  were  present  and  virulent, 
proves  their  universal  power  in  the  life  of  the  race. 
There  are  few  communities,  a  cross-section  of  which 
would  not  reveal  their  presence.  Jesus  experienced  his 
full  collision  with  them  when  he  came  to  the  capital  of 
his  nation  in  the  last  week.  There  is  a  reason  why 
prophets  are  most  likely  to  die  at  Jerusalem. 

To  make  this  clear  I  shall  enumerate  si^cjins,  all  of  a 
public  nature,  which  combined  to  kill  Jesus.^Hebore 
their  crushing  attack  in  his  body  and  soul.  He  bore 
them,  not  by  sympathy,  but  by  direct  experience.  In  so 
far  as  the  personal  sins  of  men  have  contributed  to  the 
existence  of  these  public  sins,  he  came  into  collision  with 
the  totality  of  evil  in  mankind.  It  requires  no  legal  fic- 
tion of  imputation  to  explain  that  "  he  was  wounded  for 
our  transgressions,  he  was  bruised  for  our  iniquities." 
Solidarity  explains  it. 

The  most  persistent  force  which  pushed  Jesus  toward 
death,  the  earliest  on  the  field  and  the  latest  on  the  watch, 
was  religious  bigotry.  At  that  time  it  was  embodied  in 
the  intellectual  expounders  and  the  devotees  of  Judaism 


THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL   AND    THE    ATONEMENT        249 

rather  than  in  the  priests.  Jesus  acknowledged  the  ear- 
nestness and  outward  rectitude  of  his  opponents.  The 
traditional  zeal  of  Judaism,  the  solemn  injunctions  of 
their  most  sacred  books,  and  the  punishments  the  nation 
had  incurred  by  slackness  and  tolerance  in  the  past,  seemed 
ample  justification  of  the  vigor  with  which  they  set  them- 
selves against  a  man  who  seemed  to  flout  the  Sabbath,  to 
disregard  the  laws  of  fasting,  to  eat  with  profane  and 
unwashed  hands,  to  overthrow  the  entire  doctrine  of 
clean  and  unclean  food,  and  to  confuse  all  moral  distinc- 
tions between  good  and  bad  by  associating  with  irrelig- 
ious men.  He  was  suspected  of  far-reaching  designs 
against  the  religion  of  Jehovah;  he  had  offered  to  sub- 
stitute a  temple  not  made  with  hands  for  their  ancestral 
sanctuary. 

So  they  counteracted  him  by  innuendo  and  direct 
charges,  and  tried  to  entrap  him.  The  great  invective  of 
Jesus  shows  that  he  regarded  their  influence  as  the  chief 
cause  for  the  frustration  of  his  work.  They  were  the 
active  agents  in  the  legal  steps  which  led  to  his  death  and 
exerted  the  pressure  to  which  Pilate  had  to  yield.  Secu- 
lar governors  are  but  poor  persecutors  compared  with 
men  of  religion.  The  persecutions  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire against  Christians  were  feeble  and  occasional  as  com- 
pared with  the  zeal  of  the  Inquisition.  It  takes  religion 
to  put  a  steel  edge  on  social  intolerance.  Just  because 
it  is  so  high  and  its  command  of  social  loyalty  so  great, 
it  is  pitiless  when  it  goes  wrong. 

Religious  bigotry  has  been  one  of  the  permanent  evils 
of  mankind,  the  cause  of  untold  social  division,  bitterness, 
persecution,  and  religious  wars.     It  is  always  a  social  sin. 


250  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

Estimate  the  harm  which  the  exponents  of  reHgion  have 
done  simply  by  suppressing  the  prophetic  minds  who  had 
received  from  God  fresh  thought  on  spiritual  and  intel- 
lectual problems,  and  by  cowing  those  who  might  have 
followed  the  prophets. 

Jesus  was  killed  by  ecclesiastical  religion.  He  might 
have  appeared  in  almost  any  highly  developed  nation  and 
suffered  the  same  fate.  Certainly  after  religion  bore 
his  name,  there  were  a  thousand  situations  in  which  he 
would  have  been  put  to  death  by  those  who  offered  salva- 
tion in  his  name.  Innumerable  individuals  contribute 
their  little  quota  to  make  up  this  collective  evil,  and  when 
once  the  common  mind  is  charged  with  it,  it  gets  in- 
numerable outlets.  This  sin,  then,  was  borne  by  Jesus, 
not  by  imputation,  nor  by  sympathy,  but  by  direct  ex- 
perience. 

A  second  social  evil  which  contributed  to  kill  him  was 
the  combination  of  graft  and  political  power.  Those 
who  are  in  control' of  the  machinery  of  organized  society 
are  able  to  use  it  for  selfish  and  predatory  ends,  turning 
into  private  profit  what  ought  to  serve  the  common  good. 
In  the  Oberammergau  Passion  Play  the  whole  plot  turns 
on  the  cleansing  of  the  temple.  This  interpretation  has 
found  scholarly  support.  The  market  was  originally 
outside  the  temple  gates.  A  location  inside  would  be  a 
trading  privilege.  Did  the  pious  hierarchy  take  no  of- 
fence at  the  chaffering  and  dickering  inside  of  the  sa- 
cred enclosure?  Or  was  somebody  making  something 
out  of  it?  Knowing  what  we  do  of  human  nature  and 
the  versatility  of  graft,  it  does  not  seem  likely  that  the 


THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL   AND   THE   ATONEMENT        25 1 

concessionaires  got  their  inside  stands  for  love.  If  this 
conjecture  is  true,  the  feeling  that  the  Galilsean  prophet 
was  on  the  side  of  right  would  explain  the  ready  yielding 
to  his  command;  and  the  active  concern  of  the  traders 
and  the  hierarchy  in  their  common  business  would  ex- 
plain the  energy  with  which  the  hostile  action  hencefor- 
ward moved  against  him. 

We  are  on  sure  ground  when  we  realize  that  the  pro- 
phetic leadership  of  Jesus  endangered  the  power  of  the 
ruling  class.  There  is  always  an  oligarchy,  wherever  you 
look;  monarchial  and  republican  forms  of  government 
are  both  protective  devices  for  the-group-that-controls- 
things.  This  group  is  the  universal  government.  For 
every  oligarchy  political  power  is  convertible  into  finan- 
cial income  and  social  influence,  thus  satisfying  the  pow- 
erful double  instinct  for  money  and  for  power. 

In  the  case  of  the  Jewish  people,  the  Romans  held  the 
chief  power  and  collected  the  main  taxes  through  the 
concessionaires  called  the  publicani  or  publicans.  But 
considerable  powers  were  left  to  the  native  oligarchy,  es- 
pecially the  control  of  the  institutions  of  religion,  and 
from  the  loyalty  of  the  Jews  to  their  ancestral  and  cen- 
tralized faith  a  modest  income  in  cash  and  considerable 
social  prestige  could  be  harvested.  Even  distant  colonies 
in  the  pagan  cities  remitted  the  annual  temple  tax,  and  a 
poor  widow  dropped  her  two  farthings.  Also  it  was 
pleasant  to  be  called  Rabbi,  and  to  get  the  best  seats  in 
the  synagogue.  Their  sincere  concern  for  their  religion 
was  reinforced  by  concern  for  their  special  privileges  as 
the  custodians  of  the  religious  institutions  and  jurisdic- 
tions. 


252  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

_Jesus  was  a  prophet  of  religion;  they  were  exploIte£s_of 
rehgion.  This  added  durable  fuel  to  their  bigotry. 
They  assumed  that  Jesus  planned  to  stir  up  the  revolu- 
tionary elements,  and  they  feared  that  a  messianic  revolt 
would  lose  them  the  remnants  of  their  power.  "  What- 
ever is  to  be  done?  "  the  fourth  gospel  reports  them  as 
saying;  "if  we  let  him  alone  like  this,  everybody  will 
believe  in  him,  and  then  the  Romans  will  come  and  sup- 
press our  holy  Place  and  our  nation."  Caiaphas  formu- 
lated the  situation  with  Machiavellian  frankness :  "  You 
know  nothing  about  it.  You  do  not  understand  it  is  in 
your  interest  that  one  man  should  die  for  the  People  in- 
stead of  the  whole  nation  being  destroyed."  ^ 

'  A  third  historic  evil  is  the  corruption  of  justice.  We 
:  remember  how  often  the  Hebrew  prophets  denounced  the 
judges  who  took  bribes  against  the  poor.  Bearing  false 
witness  was  so  constant  an  evil  that  it  got  a  place  in  the 
decalogue.  Jesus  took  an  illustration  of  the  power  of 
prayer  from  the  case  of  a  widow  and  a  hard  judge; 
though  the  judge  cared  neither  for  religion  nor  public 
opinion,  she  got  the  better  of  him  by  sheer  feminine  per- 
sistence. But  it  was  hard  for  widows  who  had  no  pull. 
Injustice  between  man  and  man  is  inevitable  and  bad 
enough.  But  it  is  far  worse  when  the  social  institution 
set  up  in  the  name  of  justice  gives  its  support  to  injus- 
tice. What  nation  can  claim  to  be  free  from  this?  We 
have  thought  of  the  political  prisons  of  autocratic  Russia 
as  a  remnant  of  the  dark  ages,  but  the  War  has  shown 
that  even  in  free  countries  the  judicial  process  can  swiftly 

ijohn  xi,  47-50- 


THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL   AND   THE   ATONEMENT       253 

break  conscientious  convictions  and  the  most  cherished 
rights  of  democracy.  In  our  own  country  the  delays  and 
appeals  permitted  by  our  legal  procedure  set  up  a  terrible 
inequality  between  the  rich  and  poor.  Years  of  public 
agitation  have  produced  no  adequate  change.  Even  if 
the  judge  is  wholly  free  from  bias,  the  law  itself  in  all 
countries,  presumably,  is  on  the  side  of  property.  The 
British  Parliament,  "  the  mother  of  free  institutions," 
has  always  been  an  assembly  of  propertied  men ;  only  in 
recent  years  has  it  contained  an  efficient  minority  of  rep- 
resentatives of  the  working  class.  Our  own  legislatures 
rarely  contain  any  spokesman  of  the  class  which  needs  a 
voice  most  of  all. 

As  soon  as  Jesus  was  arrested,  he  became  a  victim  of 
the  courts.  In  the  ecclesiastical  court,  we  are  told,  dis- 
torted and  bribed  testimony  was  used.  His  followers 
were  not  present  and  we  have  no  report  of  eye-witnesses. 
It  may  be  that  he  never  made  the  claim  that  he  would 
come  as  the  apocalyptic  Messiah,  and  that  it  was  con- 
cocted in  order  to  have  a  political  charge  to  present  in  the 
Roman  court.  The  priestly  court  condemned  him  on  a 
priestly  charge ;  he  was  a  heretic  and  blasphemer. 

In  the  Roman  court  the  pull  of  the  upper  classes  and 
the  pressure  of  mob  clamour  were  allowed  to  influence 
judicial  procedure.  It  was  Pilate's  high  privilege  to 
protect  a  man  whom  he  felt  to  be  innocent;  he  had  the 
military  power  of  Rome  to  back  his  verdict.  He  yielded 
to  pressure  because  his  own  career,  as  we  know  from 
secular  history,  was  corrupt ;  the  Jews  threatened  to  "  get 
him,"  and  he  knew  they  could.  So  he  took  some  water 
and  demonstratively  washed  his  hands  of  what  he  yet 


254  ^    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

consented  to  do,     Pilate's  wash-bowl  deserves  to  be  a 
mystic  symbol,  the  counter-part  of  the  Holy  Grail. 

So  Jesus  made  experience  of  one  of  the  permanent  sins 
of  organized  society,  bearing  in  his  own  body  and  soul 
what  so  many  thousands  of  the  poor  and  weak  have  borne 
before  and  after,  the  corruption  of  justice. 

I      A  fourth  permanent  social  sin  which  participated  in 
I  the  death  of  Jesus  was  the  mob  spirit  and  mob  action. 
I  XlL^-H.9Jb_^^^^t  is  the_social  spirk  gone  mad.     The  social 
^  group  then  escapes  from  the  contfoTolTts  wiser  and 
i  fairer  habits,  and  is  lashed  into  action  by  primitive  pas- 
i  sions.     The  social  spirit  reacts  so  powerfully  on  individ- 
uals, that  when  once  the  restraints  of  self-criticism  and 
self-control  are  shot  back,  the  crowd  gets  drunk  on  the 
mere  effluvia  of  its  own  emotions.     We  know  only  too 
well  that  a  city  of  respectable  and  religious  people  will 
do  fiendish  acts  of  cruelty  and  obscenity. 

There  are  radical  mobs  and  conservative  mobs.  Well- 
dressed  mobs  are  more  dangerous  than  ragged  mobs 
because  they  are  far  more  efficient.  Entire  nations  may 
come  under  the  mob  spirit,  and  abdicate  their  judgment. 
Rarely  are  mobs  wholly  spontaneous;  usually  there  is 
leadership  to  fanaticize  the  masses.  At  this  point  this 
sin  connects  with  the  sins  of  selfish  leadership  which  we 
have  analysed  before.  Sometimes  the  crowd  turns 
against  the  oligarchy;  usually  the  oligarchy  manipulates 
the  crowd. 

So  it  was  in  the  case  of  Jesus.  The  mob  shouted  for 
the  physical  force  man  and  against  the  man  who  embodied 
the  better  spirit  of  the  Jewish  nation.     There  was  "pa- 


THE   SOCIAL    GOSPEL   AND   THE    ATONEMENT        255 

triotism  "  in  this  choice.  Pilate  reahzed  that,  and  tried 
to  play  on  it  by  calling  Jesus  the  king  of  the  Jews,  but  the 
native  politicians  outplayed  him.  The  choice  was  pro- 
phetic. It  was  the  Barabbas  type  which  led  the  nation 
to  its  doom  in  the  Jewish  War  and  the  later  risings  of  the 
Jewish  patriots. 

So  this  pervasive  sin  of  community  life,  the  intoxica- 
tion of  the  social  spirit,  before  which  so  many  prophets 
and  semi-prophets  have  had  to  quail,  contributed  to  the 
death  of  Jesus.  He  bore  it,  not  by  sympathy  or  imputa- 
tion, but  by  experience. 

The  fifth  universal  sin  of  organized  society  which  co| 
operated  in  the  death  of  Christ  was  militarism^  So  fa|- 
as  we  know,  Jesus  never  passed  through  an  actual  war. 
He  probably  never  saw  his  home  burned,  his  father  killed, 
his  sisters  ravished,  nor  was  he  ever  forced  to  bear  arms. 
But  that  he  had  convictions  on  war  is  plain  from  his  say- 
ings. "He  that  taketh  the  sword  shall  perish  by  the 
sword,"  shows  clear  comprehension  of  the  fact  that  in 
war  neither  side  gains,  and  that  the  reactions  of  war  are 
as  dangerous  as  the  direct  effects;  of  which  fact  ample 
demonstrations  are  before  us. 

H  the  words  spoken  in  his  lament  over  Jerusalem  are 
authentic,  he  not  only  foresaw  that  the  present  drift 
would  carry  his  nation  to  war  and  destruction,  but  he 
regarded  the  acceptance  of  his  leadership  as  the  one 
means  by  which  his  people  might  have  escaped  their 
doom:  "  If  thou  hadst  known  in  this  day  the  things  that 
make  for  peace!  But  now  they  are  hidden  from  thine 
eyes."     To  his  mind,  then,  the  Kingdom  of  God  must 


2S6  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

have  had  a  conscious  and  definite  relation  to  war  and 
force  revolution. 

With  his  arrest  Jesus  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  war 
•  system.  When  the  soldiers  stripped  him,  beat  his  back 
with  the  leaded  whip,  pressed  the  wreath  of  thorns  into  his 
scalp,  draped  a  purple  mantle  around  him  and  saluted  this 
amusing  king  of  the  Jews,  and  when  they  blindfolded 
and  struck  him,  asking  him  to  prophesy  who  it  was  and 
spitting  in  his  face, —  this  was  the  humour  of  the  bar- 
rack room.  This  was  fun  as  the  professional  soldiers  of 
the  Roman  Empire  saw  it.  The  men  who  drove  the 
spikes  through  his  hands  and  feet  were  the  equivalent  of 
a  firing-squad  told  of¥  for  duty  at  an  execution,  and  when 
they  gambled  for  his  clothes,  they  were  taking  their  sol- 
diers' perquisites. 

I  The  last  of  this  group  of  racial  sins  is  class  contempt. 
|Class  pride  and  its  obverse  passion,  class  contempt,  are 
'the  necessary  spiritual  product  of  class  divisions.  They 
are  the  direct  negation  of  solidarity  and  love.  They  sub- 
stitute a  semi-human,  semi-ethical  relation  for  full  human 
fraternity.  The  class  system,  therefore,  is  a  sinful  de- 
nial of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  one  of  the  character- 
istic marks  and  forces  of  the  Kingdom  of  Evil. 

It  is  almost  universal.  Our  capitalistic  semi-democ- 
racy has  alleviated  it  but  not  overcome  it.  Indeed,  while 
some  other  nations  are  slowly  breaking  up  the  class  sys- 
tems erected  in  the  past,  the  present  economic  tendencies 
in  our  country,  if  allowed  to  go  on,  will  inevitably  build 
up  a  durable  class  system.  Economic  facts  mock  at  po- 
litical theory.     Sixty-five  per  cent  of  the  national  prop- 


THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL   AND   THE   ATONEMENT       257 

erty  before  the  war  was  held  by  two  per  cent  of  the  popu- 
lation. The  war  has  contributed  enormously  to  the  ag- 
gregation of  great  fortunes.  ^  Parasitic  incomes  pro- 
duce class  differences ;  class  differences  create  class  pride 
and  class  contempt. 

This  sin  has  always  rested  heavily  on  the  great  mass  of 
mankind.  It  expresses  itself  in  social  customs  and  in 
the  laws  of  a  nation.  Where  an  aristocracy  exists,  ei- 
ther its  members  are  formally  exempt  from  the  degrad- 
ing forms  of  punishment,  as  in  Russia,  or  they  are  osten- 
sibly liable  to  them  but  practically  exempt  by  the  inability 
to  put  them  in  prison  or  keep  them  there. 

In  Roman  law  crucifixion  was  a  punishment  reserved 
for  offenders  of  the  lowest  classes.  No  Roman  citizen 
could  be  crucified.  Cicero  flung  it  at  Verres  as  a  culmi- 
nating accusation  in  the  counts  of  his  misrule  that  he  had 
crucified  a  Roman.  When  Jesus  was  nailed  to  the  tree, 
therefore,  he  bore  not  only  the  lightning  shoots  of  physi- 
cal pain  imposed  by  the  cruelties  of  criminal  law,  but  also 
that  contempt  for  the  lower  classes  which  has  always  de- 
humanized the  upper  classes,  numbed  and  crippled  the  / 
spiritual  self-respect  of  the  lower  classes,  and  set  up  in- 
superable barriers  to  the  spirit  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

Religious  bigotry,  the  combination  of  graft  and  politi- 
cal power,  the  corruption  of  justice,  the  mob  spirit,  mili-      ' 

iThe  Minority  Report  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Finance, 
August  13,  1917,  contains  tables  of  95  industrial  corporations  and 
50  railways  in  which  the  average  income  of  1911-13  is  deducted 
from  the  net  income  of  1916,  leaving  special  war  profits  of  100%, 
400%,  1400%,  4500%  in  some  cases.  Thus  the  Bethlehem  Steel  Cor- 
poration made  over  1300%  or  $40,518,860,  and  the  Du  Pont  Powder 
Co.  over  1400%  or  $76,581,729. 


258  A    THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

tarism,  and  class  contempt, —  every  student  of  history 
will  recognize  that  these  sum  up  constitutional  forces  in 
the  Kingdom  of  Evil.  Jesus  bore  these  sins  in  no  legal 
or  artificial  sense,  but  in  their  impact  on  his  own  body 
and  soul.  He  had  not  contributed  to  them,  as  we  have, 
and  yet  they  were  laid  on  him.  They  were  not  only  the 
sins  of  Caiaphas,  Pilate,  or  Judas,  but  the  social  sin  of  all 
mankind,  to  which  all  who  ever  lived  have  contributed, 
and  under  which  all  who  ever  lived  have  suffered.  ^ 

The  spiritual  insight  of  Jesus  himself  has  added  a 
further  step  to  this  solidaristic  interpretation  of  his  death. 
In  the  parable  of  the  Vineyard  he  described  the  religious 
history  of  his  nation  as  a  continuous  struggle,  with  God 
and  his  prophets  on  one  side,  and  the  selfish  exploiters  of 
religion  on  the  other,  and  set  his  own  impending  death 
at  the  end  of  the  prophetic  succession  as  its  culmination. 
This  was  an  historical,  social,  and  solidaristic  interpre- 
tation of  his  death. 

At  the  close  of  the  invective  against  the  religious  lead- 
ers (Mathew  23)  he  again  outlined  this  historical  process, 
in  which  the  ruling  classes  of  the  past  had  always  silenced 
the  living  voices  of  God,  but  managed  to  utilize  them 

1 1  have  not  seen  this  analysis  attempted  before.  My  attention 
has  been  called  to  a  sermon  by  President  William  DeWitt  Hyde, 
on  "The  Sins  which  Crucified  Jesus,"  in  the  collection  of 
"  Modern  Sermons  by  World  Scholars,"  Vol.  IV,  in  which  he  fol- 
lows a  similar  line  of  inquiry.  He  specifies  the  envy  of  the 
hierarchy,  the  money-love  of  Judas,  slander,  and  the  servility  of 
Pilate.  But,  except  in  the  first  part,  dealing  with  the  hierarchy, 
he  does  not  place  the  discussion  under  the  category  of  solidarity, 
and  that  is  the  decisive  point  of  my  argument.  See  also  Henry 
Sloane  CoflSn,  "  Social  Aspects  of  the  Cross." 


THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL   AND   THE   ATONEMENT        259 

^.^iJo'sthumously  among  the  decorative  elements  and  author- 
ities of  rehgion.  He  warned  his  own  generation  that 
they  were  on  the  point  of  repeating  this  sin  by  persecuting 
the  new  prophets  whom  he  would  send.  Thereby  they 
would  prove  that  they  were  "  the  sons  of  them  that  slew 
the  prophets  ";  they  would  "  fill  up  the  measure  of  their 
fathers  " ;  and  would  bring  upon  themselves  "  all  the 
righteous  blood  shed  on  the  earth." 

His  thought  is  that  by  repeating  the  sins  of  the  past  we 
are  involved  in  the  guilt  of  the  past.  We  are  linked  in  a 
sohdarity  of  evil  and  guilt  with  all  who  have  done  the 
same  before  us,  and  all  who  will  do  the  same  after  us. 
In  so  far  then  as  we,  by  our  conscious  actions  or  our  pas- 
sive consent,  have  repeated  the  sins  which  killed  Jesus, 
we  have  made  ourselves  guilty  of  his  death.  H  those 
who  actually  killed  him  stood  before  us,  we  could  not 
wholly  condemn  them,  but  would  have  to  range  ourselves 
with  them  as  men  of  their  own  kind. 

This  is  Christ's  own  theology.  It  is  not  a  legal  theory 
of  imputation,  but  a  conception  of  spiritual  solidarity,  by 
which  our  own  free  and  personal  acts  constitute  us  par- 
takers of  the  guilt  of  others. 

Along  two  lines  we  have  replied  to  the  question  how  the 
sins  of  the  world  were  borne  by  Jesus :  First,  the  realistic 
forces  which  killed  Jesus  were  not  accidental  and  personal) 
causes  of  his  death,  but  were  the  reaction  of  the  totality  ofj; 
racial  sin  against  him ;  and  second,  the  guilt  of  those  who" 
did  it  spreads  to  all  who  re-affirm  the  acts  which  killed 
him.  The  key  to  the  problem  is  contained  in  the  realiza- 
tion of  solidarity. 


'J  > 


26o  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

We  have  understood  only  one  side  of  the  atonement 

when  we  comprehend  how  the  sins  of  humanity  converged 

in  the  death  of  Jesus  and  were  borne  by  him.     The  next 

question  is,  ^mj^vhat  sense  this  can  be  said  to  affect  God 

jind  tj)_changejth^e]ationj^^  him, 

I     The  first  step  toward  a  true  view  of  the  atonement  is 

/  to  see  the  death  of  Christ  as  an  integral  part  of  his  life. 

Theology  has  made  a  fundamental  mistake  in  treating 

the  atonement  as  something  distinct,  and  making  the 

life  of  Jesus  a  mere  staging  for  his  death,  a  matter  almost 

negligible  in  the  work  of  salvation. 

It  is  not  given  to  all  to  die  a  significant  death.  Usually, 
as  we  age  or  sicken,  the  work  of  our  life  and  the  things 
we  have  loved  and  lived  for,  begin  to  drop  from  our 
hands.  Instead  of  dying  fighting,  we  die  what  our 
pagan  forefathers  called  a  "  straw-death."  Sometimes  a 
brave  life  ends  in  a  dishonorable  death.  The  death  of 
Jesus  was  wholly  of  one  piece  with  his  life.  He  gath- 
ered all  the  radiance  of  his  character  and  purpose  in  a  fo- 
cus-point of  blazing  light,  and  there  he  died. 
y  In  living  his  life  and  dying  his  death  as  he  did,  Jesus 
.,  lived  out,  confirmed,  and  achieved  his  own  personality. 
He  did  it  for  himself,  as  well  as  for  God  and  humanity. 
There  was  no  "  merit  "  in  the  medieval  sense  in  it;  noth- 
ing superfluous  which  he  could  hand  over  and  credit  to 
others  to  make  up  their  defects.  Just  as  we  owe  God 
the  complete  best  that  is  in  us,  so  Jesus  too  owed  life  and 
death  to  God.  He  was  under  the  law  he  had  proclaimed, 
that  "  from  him  to  whom  much  is  given,  much  shall  be 
required." 

His  death  was  not  simply  an  infliction  from  without. 


THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL    AND    THE    ATONEMENT        261 

He  accepted  his  suffering  not  as  a  fate  to  be  warded  off, 
but  with  inward  assent  and  acceptance.  He  knew  it  was 
coming.  "I  must  go  on  my  way  to-day  and  to-morrow 
and  the  day  following;  for  it  can  not  be  that  a  prophet 
perish  out  of  Jerusalem."  When  the  time  came  he  "  set 
his  face  stedfastly  to  go  to  Jerusalem."  The  struggle  in 
the  garden  was  only  the  last  act.  Every  step  was  a  con- 
flict and  a  temptation,  but  whenever  the  time  came  for 
the  next  step,  Jesus  was  ready.  The  spiritual  and  re- 
demptive value  of  his  death  was  not  in  the  quantity  of 
his  mental  or  physical  suffering;  (that  is  a  caricature  of 
the  atonement;)  it  was  in  the  willingness  with  which  he 
took  on  himself  this  highest  and  hardest  part  of  his  life- 
work. 

The  life  of  Jesus  was  a  life  of  love  and  service.  At 
every  moment  his  life  was  going  out  toward  God  and 
men.  His  death,  then,  had  the  same  significance.  It 
was  the  culmination  of  his  life,  its  most  luminous  point, 
the  most  dramatic  expression  of  his  personality,  the  con- 
sistent assertion  of  the  purpose  and  law  which  had  ruled 
him  and  formed  him. 

The  law  under  which  he  lived  was  the  mind  and  will  of 
God;  the  purpose  for  which  he  lived  was  the  Kingdom 
of  God.  Jesus  had  to  learn  that  law  and  try  out  that 
purpose.  He  had  it  within  him,  but  the  great  experiences 
of  his  life  brought  the  will  of  God  and  the  needs  of  the 
Kingdom  to  his  consciousness.  The  events  leading  up  to 
his  death  were  of  the  highest  educational  importance  to 
his  spirit.  Here  he  learned  fully  the  divine  attitude  to- 
ward malignant  sin.  He  entered  into  that  attitude,  made 
it  his  own,  and  thus  revealed  God  at  the  point  where  the 


262  A    THEOLOGY    FOR    THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL 

sin  of  the  world  and  the  mind  of  God  were  in  sharpest 
antagonism. 

He  was  evidently  deeply  helped  by  contemplating  the 
life  cf  the  prophets  before  him.  The  historical  prece- 
dents furnished  by  them  took  on  the  significance  of  a 
spiritual  law  to  him.  He  constantly  connected  his  own 
work  with  theirs.  His  mental  contact  was  not  with  high- 
priests  and  kings,  but  with  the  men  who  bore  the  living 
God  in  their  hearts  and  braved  the  craft  of  priests  or  the 
yell  of  the  mob  to  speak  his  word.  He  taught  his  disci- 
ples to  see  themselves  in  the  same  succession.  They  were 
to  take  opposition  as  part  of  their  day's  work  and  not 
mind  it.  The  consciousness  of  standing  with  the  pro- 
phets was  so  uplifting  to  him  that  he  made  this  the  cul- 
mination of  the  beatitudes,  bidding  his  followers  to  re- 
joice and  be  exceeding  glad  if  they  tasted  the  same  scorn 
and  hate.  What  the  death  of  Jesus  now  does  for  us,  the 
death  of  the  prophets  did  for  him.  None  of  the  later 
theories  of  the  atonement  are  taught,  or  even  touched,  in 
the  sayings  of  Jesus,  except  perhaps  at  the  Lord's  Supper. 
The  only  clear  interpretation  of  his  death  from  his  own 
mind  is  this,  that  he  ranged  his  sufferings  in  line  with 
those  of  the  prophets.  This  lifts  the  experiences  and 
functions  of  the  prophets  to  a  very  high  level  in  the  re- 
demption of  mankind. 

We  said  that  through  his  sufferings  Jesus  came  into 
full  understanding  of  God's  attitude  toward  malignant 
sin,  and  adopted  it.  God's  attitude  is  combined  of  oppo- 
sition and  love.  God  has  always  borne  the  brunt  of  hu- 
man sin  while  loving  us.  He  too  has  been  gagged  and 
cast  out  by  men.     He  has  borne  our  sins  with  a  resistance 


THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL    AND   THE    ATONEMENT        263 

which  never  yields  and  yet  is  always  patient.  Within  hu- 
man limits  Jesus  acted  as  God  acts.  The  non-resistance 
of  Jesus,  SO  far  from  being  a  strange  or  erratic  part  of 
his  teaching,  is  an  essential  part  of  his  conception  of  life 
and  of  his  God-consciousness.  When  we  explain  it  away 
or  belittle  it,  we  prove  that  our  spirit  and  his  do  not  coal- 
esce. 

In  the  Sanhedrim,  in  the  court  of  Pilate,  amid  the  jests 
of  the  soldiers,  Jesus  had  to  live  out  the  Father's  mind 
and  spirit.  He  did  it  in  the  combination  of  stedfastness 
and  patience.  The  most  striking  thing  in  his  bearing  is 
his  silence.  He  never  yielded  an  inch,  but  neither  did  he 
strike  back,  or  allow  others  to  do  it  for  him.  "If  my 
kingdom  were  on  a  level  with  yours,"  he  said  to  Pilate, 
"  my  followers  would  fight  to  protect  me."  He  did  not 
answer  force  by  force,  nor  anger  by  anger.  If  he  had, 
the  world  at  that  point  would  have  subdued  him  and  he 
would  have  fallen  away  from  God.  If  he  had  headed  the 
Galilasans  to  storm  Pilate's  castle,  he  would  have  been  a 
God- forsaken  Christ. 

But  his  attitude  was  not  soft.  He  resisted.  He 
fought.  Even  on  the  cross  he  fought.  He  never  fought 
so  hard  as  then.  But  not  with  fist  or  stick  on  a  physical 
level  of  brute  force,  but  by  the  quietness  which  both  mad- 
dens and  disarms.  If  he  had  blustered,  he  would  have 
been  conquered.  Christian  art  has  misreported  him  when 
it  makes  him  suffer  with  head  down.  His  head  was  up 
and  he  was  in  command  of  the  situation. 

We  have  cleared  the  way  for  the  question,  how  this 
obedience  unto  death  affected  God.     Of  course,  any  at- 


264  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

tempt  to  answer  this  question  on  the  part  of  any  human 
mind,  inspired  or  uninspired,  is  an  attempt  to  express 
more  than  it  can  conceive.  "  God  is  in  heaven,  and  thou 
art  on  earth;  therefore  let  thy  words  be  few."  All 
theories  on  the  atonement  prove  how  unlovely  the  image 
of  man  is  when  he  enlarges  it  and  projects  it  to  the  skies. 
For  a  Christian  man  the  only  sure  guide  in  speaking  of 
God  is  the  mind  of  Christ.  That  is  our  logic  and  meta- 
physic. 

If  we  think  of  God  in  a  human  way,  it  seems  as  if  the 
death  of  Jesus  must  have  been  a  great  experience  for  God. 
Pantheistic  philosophy  represents  God  as  coming  to  con- 
sciousness in  the  spiritual  life  of  men  and  rising  as  our 
race  rises.  If  we  believe  that  he  is  immanent  in  the  life 
of  humanity  and  in  a  fellowship  of  love  with  us  as  our 
Father,  it  does  not  seem  too  daring  to  think  that  our 
little  sorrows  and  sins  might  be  great  sorrows  to  him, 
and  that  our  spiritual  triumphs  might  be  great  joys. 
What,  then,  would  it  mean  to  God  to  be  in  the  personality 
of  Jesus  and  to  go  through  his  suffering  and  death  with 
him?  If  the  principle  of  forgiving  love  had  not  been  in 
the  heart  of  God  before,  this  experience  would  fix  it  there. 
If  he  had  ever  thought  and  felt  like  the  Jewish  Jehovah, 
he  would  henceforth  think  and  feel  as  the  Father  of  Jesus 
Christ.  If  Christ  was  the  divine  Logos  —  God  himself 
expressing  himself  —  then  the  experience  of  the  cross 
reacted  directly  on  the  mind  of  God. 

We  may  conceive  the  effect  of  Christ's  life  and  death 
on  God  in  another  way. 

As  long  as  humanity  lives  within  the  Kingdom  of  Evil, 
it  is  out  of  spiritual  unity  and  fellowship  with  God,  and 


THE   SOCIAL    GOSPEL   AND   THE   ATONEMENT        265 

God  is  forced  into  an  attitude  of  opposition  where  he 
desires  to  be  in  an  attitude  of  love  and  help.  Christ  was 
the  first  to  live  fully  within  the  consciousness  of  God  and 
to  share  his  holy  and  loving  will.  He  drew  others  into 
his  realization  of  God  so  that  they  too  freely  loved  God 
and  appropriated  his  will  as  their  own.  Thus  he  set  in 
motion  a  new  beginning  of  spiritual  life  within  the  or- 
ganized total  of  the  race,  and  this  henceforth  pervaded 
the  common  life.  This  was  the  embryonic  beginning 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God  within  the  race.  Therewith  hu- 
manity began  to  be  lifted  to  a  new  level  of  spiritual  ex- 
istence. To  God,  who  sees  the  end  enfolded  in  the  be- 
ginning, this  initiation  of  a  new  humanity  was  the  guar- 
antee of  its  potential  perfection. 

This  would  alter  the  relation  between  God  and  human- 
ity from  antagonism  to  co-operative  unity  of  will;  not 
by  a  legal  transaction,  but  by  the  presence  of  a  new  and 
decisive  factor  embodied  in  the  racial  life  which  affected 
its  spiritual  value  and  potency.  When  men  would  learn 
to  understand  and  love  God ;  and  when  God  could  by  an- 
ticipation see  his  own  life  appropriated  by  men,  God  and 
men  would  enter  into  spiritual  solidarity,  and  this  would 
be  the  only  effective  reconciliation.^ 

In  this  change  of  relations  Christ  would  be  the  initia- 
tor. His  obedience  would  be  the  germinal  cell  from 
which  the  new  organism  would  grow.  His  place  within 
it  would  be  unique.  But  his  aim  and  effort  would  be  to 
make  himself  not  unique,  but  to  become  "  the  first-bom 
among  many  brethren." 

iThis  line  of  thought  in  substance  follows  Schleiermacher. 


266  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

But  what  place  does  his  death  hold  in  this  process  of 
reconciliation?  No  place  apart  from  his  life,  his  life- 
purpose,  and  the  development  and  expression  of  his  per- 
sonality ;  a  very  great  place  as  the  effective  completion  of 
his  life.  Men  were  coming  into  fellowship  with  the 
Father  before  his  death  happened,  and  before  they  knew 
that  it  was  to  happen.  Jesus  labored  to  unite  men  with 
God  without  referring  to  his  death.  If  he  had  lived  for 
thirty  years  longer,  he  would  have  formed  a  great  so- 
ciety of  those  who  shared  his  conception  and  religious 
realization  of  God,  and  this  would  have  been  that  nucleus 
of  a  new  humanity  which  would  change  the  relation  of 
God  to  humanity.  Indeed,  we  can  conceive  that  in  thirty 
years  of  additional  life  Jesus  could  have  put  the  imprint 
of  his  mind  much  more  clearly  on  the  movement  of 
Christianity,  and  protected  it  from  the  profound  distor- 
tions to  which  it  was  subjected.  There  would  have  been 
an  ample  element  of  prophetic  suffering  without  physical 
death.     Death  came  by  the  wickedness  of  men. 

But  taken  in  connection  with  his  life,  as  the  inevitable 
climax  of  his  prophetic  career,  his  death  had  an  essential 
place  in  his  work  of  establishing  solidarity  and  reconcilia- 
tion between  God  and  man.  It  was  his  supreme  act  of 
opposition  to  sin ;  not  even  the  fear  or  the  pangs  of  death 
could  make  him  yield  anything  of  what  God  had  given 
him  to  hold.  It  was  the  supreme  act,  also,  of  obedience 
to  God,  to  which  he  was  moved  by  love  to  God  and  loyalty 
to  his  Kingdom.  Moreover,  as  we  shall  see,  his  power  to 
assimilate  others  to  his  God-consciousness  and  to  gather 
a  new  humanity,  was  influenced  by  his  death,  and  the 


THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL   AND    THE    ATONEMENT        267 

creation  of  such  an  effective  nucleus  is  essential  to  any 
real  reconciliation. 

This  conception  is  free  from  the  artificial  and  immoral 
elements  inherent  in  all  forensic  and  governmental  inter- 
pretations of  the  atonement.  It  begins  with  the  solidarity 
between  God  and  Christ,  and  proceeds  to  the  solidarity 
between  God  and  mankind.  It  deals  with  social  and  re- 
ligious realities.  It  connects  the  idea  of  reconciliation 
and  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  It  does  not  dis- 
pense with  the  moral  eft'ort  of  men  and  the  moral  re- 
newal of  social  life  but  absolutely  demands  both.  It  fur- 
nishes a  mystic  basis  for  the  social  revolution.  It  would 
be  a  theological  conception  which  the  social  gospel  could  - 
utilize  and  enforce. 

Finally  we  must  inquire  how  the  atonement  affected 
men.  What  did  the  death  of  Christ  add  to  his  life  in  the 
way  of  reconciling,  and  redemptive  power?  The  answer 
to  this  can  not  be  narrowed  down  to  a  single  influence. 
An  event  like  the  death  of  Jesus  influences  human 
thought  and  feeling  in  many  ways.    I  shall  mention  three. 

First:  It  was  the  conclusive  demonstration  of  the  IvV V 
power  of  sin  in  humanity.  I  can  not  contemplate  the  \  '-^^ 
force  and  malignancy  of  the  six  social  and  racial  sins 
which  converged  on  Jesus  without  a  deep  sense  of  the 
enormous  power  of  evil  in  the  world  and  of  the  bitter 
task  before  those  who  make  up  the  cutting  edge  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  In  various  ways  this  realization  comes 
to  all  who  think  of  the  cross  of  Christ.  But  the  solidar- 
istic  interpretation  of  the  killing  power  of  sin  is  by  far 


268  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

the  most  impressive.  The  cross  forever  puts  a  question- 
mark  alongside  of  any  easy  treatment  of  sin. 
—  Now,  the  surest  way  to  make  sin  pall  on  us  is  to  watch 
it  go  its  full  length.  The  first  beginnings  of  drink,  vice, 
or  war  are  of  exciting  interest,  but  the  fourth  and  fifth 
act  make  us  very  sick.  If  realistic  art  would  only  be 
faithful  and  tell  the  whole  story  to  the  end,  preachers 
=  might  suspend  business.  An  evening  out ;  a  broken  girl  ; 
a  shamed  family;  a  syphilitic  baby;  scrophulous  bodies 
for  several  generations.  Show  us  the  last  results  at  the 
beginning  and  we  should  sober  up. 

Moreover,  the  moral  cure  worked  by  sin  is  most  effec- 
tive in  some  way  when  we  see  our  sin  working  in  another 
life.  A  man  may  be  willing  to  gamble  with  his  own  life 
and  take  the  risk  of  his  sport,  but  he  may  shrink  from 
making  another  life  pay  for  it  by  agony  or  death, —  pro- 
vided he  realizes  the  connection.  Therefore  it  is  the 
business  of  all  who  profit  by  sin  to  make  the  exploited 
sinner  forget  the  social  effects  of  his  sin.  The  more 
innocent  and  lovable  the  victim,  the  more  poignant  the 
remorse  when  we  realize  what  we  have  done. 

When  discussing  the  problem  of  suffering,  (Chapter 
XV),  we  made  the  point  that  pain  in  the  physical  organ- 
ism has  a  beneficent  preventive  use  and  purpose,  and 
that  social  suffering  serves  the  same  purpose  for  society, 
provided  it  can  be  effectively  brought  home,  and  provided 
there  is  enough  sense  of  sympathy  and  solidarity  to  care. 
From  all  these  points  of  view  the  suffering  of  Christ 
is  an  incomparable  demonstration  of  sin.  Here  we  see 
human  sin  in  its  mature  and  social  form ;  the  victim  has 
not  contributed  to  it,  so  that  the  guilt  can  not  be  divided, 


THE    SOCIAL   GOSPEL   AND   THE   ATONEMENT        269 

palliated,  or  shifted;  the  one  who  suffered  was  loving 
and  lovable  beyond  all  others;  yet  great  social  forces 
combined  with  the  utmost  energy  to  kill  him. 

As  soon  as  the  passion  of  the  moment  subsided  and 
the  "interests"  were  safe  again,  men  were  impressed 
with  the  innocence  of  Jesus.  The  more  they  realized  the 
holiness  of  his  Hfe,  the  strength  of  his  love,  the  divine 
value  of  his  person,  the  more  would  they  feel  the  sin- 
fulness of  the  sin  committed  there.  Besides,  the  blame 
was  not  confined  to  those  who  did  the  act ;  all  the  interpre- 
tations of  the  Church  emphasized  the  universality  of  the 
guilt.  Every  Christian  has  had  his  eye  fixed  on  the  cross 
as  a  place  of  engrossing  interest.  Whatever  the  theories 
of  the  atonement  might  be,  was  the  death  of  Jesus  not 
bound  to  produce  a  deeper  moral  earnestness  of  life,  a 
wider  sense  of  sin,  and  more  self-restraint  and  thought- 
fulness  ? 

Suflering  is  Nature's  publicity  method  to  secure  atten-' 
tion  to  something  that  is  wrong.  All  history  demon- 
strates that  men  are  stupid  and  callous  to  suffering,  even 
to  their  own  suffering,  and  that  only  the  most  effective 
means  will  arouse  them  to  put  a  preventive  stop  to  what 
is  destroying  them.  In  all  reverence  I  would  say  that 
the  cross  of  Christ  was  the  most  tremendous  publicity 
success  in  the  history  of  mankind.  No  event  in  history 
has  received  such  earnest  and  constant  attention.  None 
has  spread  so  much  seriousness,  and  made  men  realize  the 
sin  of  humanity  from  so  many  angles.  None  has  so  im- 
pressed them  with  their  own  complicity  in  it  and  the  solid- 
arity of  humanity  in  sin. 

In  so  far  as  a  genuine  consciousness  of  sin  is  the  first 


270  A    THEOLOGY    FOR   THE  SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

!  Step  toward  redemption  from  sin,  the  cross  was  an  essen- 
'  tial  part  of  the  redemptive  process.     The  life  of  Christ 

never  spread  such  a  realization  of  sin  as  his  death  has 

done. 

Second:  the  death  of  Christ  was  the  supreme  revela- 
tion of  love. 

Love  is  the  social  instinct  of  the  race.  In  all  its  many 
forms  it  binds  man  to  man.  Every  real  improvement 
of  society  gives  love  a  freer  chance.  Every  genuine 
progress  must  be  preceded  by  a  new  capitalization  of 
love.^ 

Jesus  put  love  to  the  front  in  his  teaching.  He  was 
ready  to  accept  love  for  God  and  man  as  a  valid  equiva- 
lent for  the  customary  religious  and  ethical  duties.  His 
own  character  and  action  are  redolent  of  virile  and  ener- 
getic love. 

If  Jesus  had  died  a  natural  death,  posterity  would 
still  treasure  his  teaching,  coupled  with  the  commentary 
of  his  Hfe,  as  the  most  beautiful  exposition  of  love.  But 
its  effectiveness  was  greatly  increased  by  his  death. 
Death  has  a  strange  power  over  the  human  imagination 
and  memory.  A  pathetic  or  heroic  death  wins  a  place 
for  a  weak  and  cowardly  man.  If  a  significant  death  is 
added  to  a  brave  and  self-sacrificing  life,  the  effect  is 
great.  A  righteous  man  might  well  pray  for  this  as  the 
last  great  blessing  of  his  life,  that  his  death  might  in- 
terpret the  higher  meaning  of  his  life  and  weld  all  his 

1  The  social  importance  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  love  is 
treated  somewhat  fully  in  my  little  book,  "  Dare  We  Be  Christians?  " 
(Pilgrim  Press.) 


THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL    AND    THE    ATONEMENT        27I 

labors  into  one  by  the  flame  of  suffering.  This  crowning 
grace  was  given  to  Jesus.  His  death  underscored  all  he 
said  on  love.  It  put  the  red  seal  of  sincerity  on  his 
words.  "  Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  that  he  give 
his  life  for  his  friends."  Unless  he  gives  it  for  his  ene- 
mies too. 

The  human  value  of  his  love  was  translated  into 
higher  terms  by  the  belief  that  Christ  revealed  and  ex- 
pressed the  heart  and  mind  of  God.  If  Christ  stood  for 
saving  pity  and  tender  mercy  and  love  that  seeks  the  lost, 
then  God  must  be  that  kind  of  a  God.  It  is  a  question 
if  the  teaching  of  Jesus  alone  could  have  made  that  the 
common  faith  of  millions.  His  death  effectively  made 
God  a  God  of  love  to  the  simplest  soul,  and  that  has 
transformed  the  meaning  of  the  universe  and  the  whole 
outlook  of  the  race.  Surely  the  character  of  the  God  a 
man  worships  reacts  on  the  man.  Suppose  that  our  life 
has  mocked  our  creed  of  love  a  thousand  times;  how 
many  times  would  our  life  have  mocked  at  love  if  love 
were  not  in  our  creed?  Suppose  the  dualism  of  the  first 
century  had  written  pessimism  and  ascetic  resignation 
into  our  creed.  Suppose  that  instead  of  the  Father  of 
Jesus  Christ  we  had  a  God  who  embodied  the  doctrine 
of  the  survival  of  the  fit,  the  rule  of  the  strong,  and  the 
suppression  of  the  weak,  how  would  that  have  affected 
the  spiritual  character  of  Western  civilization?  How 
much  chance  would  there  have  been  for  democracy  ?  In- 
stead of  that,  love  has  been  written  into  the  character  of 
God  and  into  the  ethical  duty  of  man;  not  only  com- 
mon love,  but  self-sacrificing  love.  And  it  was  the  death 
of  Christ  which   furnished  the  chief  guarantee  for  the 


272  A   THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

love  of  God  and  the  chief  incentive  to  self-sacrificing 
love  in  men. 

It  is  true  that  the  self-sacrifice  generated  by  Christian- 
ity has  been  misdirected  and  used  up  for  nothing  in  as- 
cetic Christianity.  But  no  one  can  well  deny  that  the 
sum  total  of  self-sacrifice  evoked  by  Christianity  has 
been  and  is  enormous,  and  that  its  influence  on  the  de- 
velopment of  Christian  civilization  has  been  very  great. 
Some  of  the  legal  conceptions  of  the  atonement  have  ob- 
scured the  love  of  God  in  the  death  of  Christ.  But  the 
fact  that  the  Christian  consciousness  has  reacted  against 
any  despotic  elements  in  the  character  of  God,  is  proof  of 
the  fact  that  the  essentially  Christian  idea  had  done  its 
work  in  us  and  overcome  the  sinful  alloy  with  which  it 
was  mixed. 

Since  we  live  in  the  fellowship  of  a  God  of  love,  we  are 
living  in  a  realm  of  grace  as  friends  and  sons  of  God. 
We  do  not  have  to  earn  all  we  get  by  producing  merit. 
We  live  on  grace  and  what  we  do  is  slight  compared  with 
what  is  done  for  us. 

This  conviction,  too,  is  based  on  the  death  of  Christ. 
Belief  in  the  atonement  has  enabled  religious  souls  first 
to  break  away  from  self-made  righteousness  and  to  real- 
ize salvation  as  a  gift.  With  their  eye  on  the  cross  of 
Christ  they  denied  the  merit  system,  first  of  Judaism, 
later  of  the  Catholic  Church.  The  great  religious  char- 
acters are  those  who  escaped  from  themselves  and  learned 
to  depend  on  God, —  Paul,  Augustine,  Saint  Francis, 
Tauler  on  whom  Luther  fed,  Luther  himself. 

Self-earned  righteousness  and  pride  in  self  are  the 


THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL   AND   THE   ATONEMENT        273 

marks  of  religious  individualism.  Humility  is  the  ca- 
pacity to  realize  that  we  count  for  little  in  ourselves  and 
must  take  our  place  in  a  larger  fellowship  of  life. 
Therefore  humility  and  dependence  on  grace  are  social 
virtues. 

The  cross  is  the  monumental  fact  telling  of  grace  and 
inviting  repentance  and  humility. 

Thus  the  death  of  Christ  was  the  conclusive  and  effec- 
tive expression  of  the  love  of  Jesus  Christ  for  God  and 
man,  and  his  complete  devotion  to  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
The  more  his  personality  was  understood  to  be  the  full 
and  complete  expression  of  the  character  of  God,  the 
more  did  his  death  become  the  assurance  and  guarantee 
that  God  loves  us,  forgives  us,  and  is  willing  to  do  all 
things  to  save  us. 

■'  It  is  the  business  of  theologians  and  preachers  to  make 
the  atonement  effective  in  producing  the  characteristic 
of  love  in  Christian  men  and  women.  If  it  does  not 
assimilate  them  to  the  mind  of  Christ  it  has  missed  its 
purpose.  We  can  either  be  saved  by  non-ethical  sacra- 
mental methods,  or  by  absorbing  the  moral  character  of 
Jesus  into  our  own  character.  Let  every  man  judge 
which  is  the  salvation  he  wants. 

The  social  gospel  is  based  on  the  belief  that  love  is 
the  only  true  working  principle  of  human  society.  It 
teaches  that  the  Kingdom  of  Evil  has  thrust  love  aside 
and  employed  force,  because  love  will  support  only  a  fra- 
ternal distribution  of  property  and  power,  while  force 
will  support  exploitation  and  oppression.  If  love  is  the 
fundamental  quality  in  God,  it  must  be  part  of  the  con- 


274  A    THEOLOGY   FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

stitution  of  humanity.  Then  it  can  not  be  impossible 
to  found  society  on  love.  The  atonement  is  the  symbol 
and  basis  of  a  new  social  order. 

Third:  the  death  of  Christ  has  reinforced  prophetic 
religion.^ 

Historical  criticism  has  performed  an  inestimable  serv- 
ice to  true  religion  by  clearing  up  the  historical  antagon- 
ism between  priest  and  prophet  in  the  Old  Testament, 
and  labeling  the  literary  documents  of  Jewish  religion 
according  to  the  religious  interest  which  produced  or  re- 
edited  them.  This  antagonism  is  a  permanent  element 
in  the  Christian  religion,  and  part  of  the  conflict  between 
the  Kingdom  of  God  and  the  Kingdom  of  Evil.  A  com- 
prehension of  the  difference  between  prophet  and  priest 
is  essential  to  a  clear  understanding  of  Jesus  and  to  in- 
telligent discipleship. 

The  priest  is  the  religious  professional.  He  performs 
religious  functions  which  others  are  not  allowed  to  per- 
form. It  is  therefore  to  his  interest  to  deny  the  right 
of  free  access  to  God,  and  to  interpose  himself  and  his 
ceremonial  between  the  common  man  and  God.  He 
has  an  interest  in  representing  God  as  remote,  liable  to 
anger,  jealous  of  his  rights,  and  quick  to  punish,  be- 
cause this  gives  importance  to  the  ritual  methods  of  pla- 
cating God  which  the  priest  alone  can  handle.  It  is 
essential  to  the  priestly  interest  to  establish  a  monopoly  of 
rights  and  functions  for  his  group.  He  is  all  for  au- 
thority,  and   in   some   form   or   other  he   is   always   a 

1  The  importance  of  prophecy  within  the  Christian  religion  has 
been  discussed  in  part  in  Chapter  XVI. 


THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL    AND   THE    ATONEMENT         275 

spokesman  of  that  authority  and  shares  its  influence. 
Doctrine  and  history  as  he  teaches  it,  estabhsh  a  jure 
divino  institution  of  his  order,  which  is  transmitted  either 
by  physical  descent,  as  in  the  Aaronic  priesthood,  or  by 
spiritual  descent  through  some  form  of  exclusive  ordina- 
tion, as  in  the  Catholic  priesthood.  As  history  invari- 
ably contradicts  his  claims,  he  frequently  tampers  with 
history  by  Deuteronomic  codes  or  Pseudo-Isidorian  De- 
cretals, in  order  to  secure  precedents  and  the  weight  of 
antiquity.  He  is  opposed  to  free  historical  investiga- 
tion because  this  tears  open  the  protective  web  of  ideal- 
ized history  and  doctrine  which  he  has  woven  about  him. 
He  is  the  middle  man  of  religion,  and  like  other  middle- 
men he  is  sincerely  convinced  that  he  is  necessary  for  the 
good  of  humanity  and  that  religion  would  perish  with- 
out him.  But  underneath  all  is  the  selfish  interest  of  his 
class,  which  exploits  religion. 

The  prophet  becomes  a  prophet  by  some  personal  ex- 
perience of  God,  which  henceforth  is  the  dominant  reality 
of  his  life.  It  creates  inward  convictions  which  become 
his  message  to  men.  Usually  after  great  inward  con- 
flicts and  the  bursting  of  priest-made  barriers  he  has  dis- 
covered the  way  of  access  to  God,  and  has  found  him 
wonderful, —  just,  merciful,  free.  As  a  result  of  his 
own  experience  he  usually  becomes  the  constitutional  en- 
emy of  priestly  religion,  the  scorner  of  sacrificial  and 
ritual  doings,  a  voice  of  doubt  about  the  doctrines  and 
the  literature  which  shelter  the  priest.  He  too  is  a 
middle-man,  but  he  wants  no  monopoly.  His  highest 
desire  is  to  have  all  men  share  what  he  has  experienced. 
li  his  own  caste  or  people  claim  special  privileges  as  a 


2y^  A    THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

divinely  descended  caste  or  a  chosen  people,  he  is  always 
for  some  expansion  of  religious  rights,  for  a  crossing  of 
boundaries  and  a  larger  unity.  His  interest  is  in  free- 
dom, reality,  immediateness, —  the  reverse  of  the  priestly 
interest.  His  religious  experience  often  gives  a  profound 
quickening  to  his  social  consciousness,  an  unusual  sense 
of  the  value  of  life  and  a  strong  compassion  with  the 
suffering  and  weak,  and  therefore  a  keen  feeling  for 
human  rights  and  indignation  against  injustice.  He  has 
a  religious  conviction  that  God  is  against  oppression  and 
on  the  side  of  the  weak.^ 

The  religion  of  the  priest  and  the  religion  of  the 
prophet  grow  side  by  side,  on  the  same  national  soil  and 
from  the  same  historic  convictions,  but  they  are  two  dis- 
tinct and  antagonistic  religions.  The  usual  distinctions 
which  separate  religions  and  denominations  are  trivial 
compared  with  this.  This  difference  cuts  across  most 
other  lines  of  cleavage.  Since  the  Reformation,  how- 
ever, the  personal  qualities  which  marked  the  prophet 
have  become  to  some  extent  the  mark  and  foundation  of 
continuous  religious  bodies.  Over  against  Catholicism, 
Protestantism  has,  in  its  noblest  periods,  had  prophetic 
quality;  over  against  the  Established  Churches  the  Free 
Churches  have  a  prophetic  mission.  But  the  flame  of 
prophetic  religion  is  always  dying  down  for  lack  of  oxy- 
gen. It  burns  only  when  there  is  something  worth 
burning  for.     It  kindles  wherever  the  Kingdom  of  God 

1 1  wish  to  call  attention  in  advance  to  a  book  which  is  still  in 
preparation,  "Religion,  its  Prophets  and  its  Exploiters,"  by 
Professor  James  Bishop  Thomas,  Ph.D.,  of  the  University  of  the 
South.  It  presents  with  impressive  clearness  the  historic  antagon- 
ism between  priest  and  prophet. 


THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL   AND    THE    ATONEMENT        27/ 

is  clashing  with  the  Kingdom  of  Evil.  You  can  tell 
where  the  conflict  is  on  today  when  you  hear  the  voice 
of  prophetic  religion.  In  every  religious  body,  even  in 
those  that  have  repudiated  priestliness,  you  have  the  un- 
developed and  unconscious  priest  and  prophet  side  by 
side;  mixed  types,  like  Ezekiel  and  Savonarola;  embry- 
onic prophets ;  spent  prophets ;  prophets  who  have  given 
up;  prophets  whose  bodies  and  minds  have  been  hurt 
and  thrown  out  of  equilibrium.     God  knows  his  own. 

The  prophet  is  always  the  predestined  advance  agent 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  His  religion  flings  him  as  a 
fighter  and  protester  against  the  Kingdom  of  Evil.  His 
sense  of  justice,  compassion,  and  solidarity  sends  him 
into  tasks  which  would  be  too  perilous  for  others.  It 
connects  him  with  oppressed  social  classes  as  their  leader. 
He  bears  their  risk  and  contempt.  As  he  tries  to  rally 
the  moral  and  religious  forces  of  society,  he  encounters 
derelict  and  frozen  religion,  and  the  selfish  and  conserva- 
tive interest  of  the  classes  which  exploit  religion.  He 
tries  to  arouse  institutional  religion  from  the  inside,  or  he 
pounds  it  from  the  outside.  This  puts  him  in  the  posi- 
tion of  a  heretic,  a  free  thinker,  an  enemy  of  religion, 
an  atheist.  Probably  no  prophet  escaped  without  bearing 
some  such  name.  His  opposition  to  social  injustice 
arouses  the  same  kind  of  antagonism  from  those  who 
profit  by  it.  How  far  these  interests  will  go  in  their 
methods  of  su^^pressing  the  prophets  depends  on  their 
power  and  their  needs.  I  have  been  impressed  with  the 
fact  that  though  Christianity  began  in  a  renascence  of 
prophetism,  scarcely  any  personality  who  bears  the  marks 
of  the  prophet  can  be  found  in  Church  History  between 


278  A    THEOLOGY    FOR   THE   SOCIAL   GOSPEL 

A.  D.  100  and  A.  D.  1200,  Two  main  explanations  sug- 
gest themselves :  that  their  own  capacity  for  self-sacrifice 
led  the  potential  prophets  into  the  monasteries  and  put 
them  under  monastic  obedience;  and  that  the  Catholic 
Church,  which  embodies  the  priestly  principles,  suffocated 
the  nascent  prophets  by  its  spiritual  authority  and  the 
physical  force  it  could  command. 

In  this  way  the  death  of  Jesus  has  taken  personal  hold 
,on  countless  religious  souls.  It  has  set  them  free  from 
the  fear  of  pain  and  the  fear  of  men,  and  given  them  a 
certain  finishing  quality  of  strength.  It  has  inspired 
courage  and  defiance  of  evil,  and  sent  men  on  lost  hopes. 
The  cross  of  Christ  put  God's  approval  on  the  sacrificial 
impulse  in  the  hearts  of  the  brave,  and  dignified  it  by  con- 
necting it  with  one  of  the  central  dogmas  of  our  faith. 
The  cross  has  become  the  motive  and  the  method  of  noble 
personalities. 

It  has  compelled  reflection  on  the  value  of  the  prophets 
for  the  progress  of  humanity.  What  might  have  been  a 
sporadic  and  unaccountable  religious  instinct,  has  been 
lifted  to  the  level  of  a  law  of  history  and  religion. 

By  the  light  of  burning  heretics  Christ's  bleeding  feet  I  track, 
Toiling  up  new  Calvaries  ever  with  the  cross  that  turns  not 

back. 
And   these   mounts   of   anguish   number  how   each   generation 

learned 
One  new  word  of  that  grand  Credo  which  in  prophet-hearts 

hath  burned 
Since    the   first    man    stood    God-conquered    with    his    face    to 

heaven  upturned.^ 

1  From  James  Russell  Lowell's  "  Present  Crisis."  This  poem  is 
the  finest  expression  I  know  of  the  historic  function  of  prophet- 
hood  within  the  solidarity  of  mankind  and  its  spiritual  progress. 


THE    SOCIAL    GOSPEL   AND   THE    ATONEMENT        279 

The  death  of  Jesus  was  the  clearest  and  most  con-  . 
spicuous  case  of  prophetic  suffering.  It  shed  its  own 
clarity  across  all  other,  less  perfect  cases,  and  interpreted 
their  moral  dignity  and  religious  significance.  His  death 
comforted  and  supported  all  who  bore  prophetic  suffer- 
ing by  the  consciousness  that  they  were  "  bearing  the 
marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus  "  and  were  carrying  on  what 
he  had  borne.  The  prophet  is  always  more  or  less  cast 
out  by  society  and  profoundly  lonely  and  homeless ;  con- 
sequently he  reaches  out  for  companionship,  for  a  tribal 
solidarity  of  his  own,  and  a  chieftainship  of  the  spirit 
to  which  he  can  give  his  loyalty  and  from  which  he  can 
gather  strength.  Then  it  is  his  rightful  comfort  to  re- 
member that  Jesus  has  suffered  before  him. 

Thus  the  cross  of  Christ  contributes  to  strengthen  the 
power  of  prophetic  religion,  and  therewith  the  redemp- 
tive forces  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.     Before  the  Ref- 
ormation the  prophet  had  only   a  precarious    foothold 
within  the  Church  and  no  right  to  live  outside  of  it.     The 
rise  of  free  religion  and  political  democracy  has  given 
him  a  field  and  a  task.     The  era  of  prophetic  and  demo-  ' 
cratic  Christianity  has  just  begun.     This  concerns  the  so-  : 
clal  gospel,  for  the  social  gospel  is  the  voice  of  prophecy  r- 
in  modern  life.  I 


FEINTED    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    OF    AMERICA 


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